


Adapto Sapiens II: Pretender

by Kelly Shiragami (OptimusNuva)



Series: Adapto Sapiens [2]
Category: G.I. Joe - All Media Types, Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: 80's Music, Dream Sequence, Flashbacks, Gen, M/M, Military Science Fiction, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Prophetic Dreams, Psychic Bond, Screenplay/Script Format, Western, area 51
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2020-11-28 03:09:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20959469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OptimusNuva/pseuds/Kelly%20Shiragami
Summary: The year is 1988. A second wave of Decepticons arrive, sporting new, bizarre powers. Earth's human/Autobot militia must overcome their differences to survive the coming battles; trust me, the survival rate's kinda low anyway! Semi-brutal violence, vague gore, some brief profanity, and "the implication". Also general ethereality, you've now been visited by David Lynch holding a monkey with a rubber duck head.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Formatting screenplays is tricky, but worth it. :-{ )

_Dearest producer (whose name hopefully need not be mentioned again),_

_I humbly come to you with the end result of about... eight months of pure research from around the world. And I advise you now:_

_SOMEONE IS_ _WATCHING__._

_Get yourself somewhere safe before you read the rest of what's enclosed. Are you somewhere secure now? Locked doors, no windows, alone, et cetera?_

_Good. Let's begin._

_Hopefully, I'll have been lying about the need for secrecy. Even in the film industry, I've heard of it taken to ridiculous levels, and I bet you have too. But... in this day and age, what's safe anymore? Who's safe anymore? No one. Why else do we need movies reminding us of what happens on a daily basis? This may sound ironic, but it's distraction. Given the nature of the growing neo-Kaiju industry, we all need a bit of ultra-realistic, can't-be-torn-away distraction right now. We're doing a civic duty, and we need to step up our game._

_I come to you with a proposal - perhaps for a movie, perhaps to be mildly altered into miniseries format. Eight months MIA for research, traveling around the world, conducting various interviews, even once bugging a CIA agent (who hopefully hasn't followed me, especially after that Godzilla movie a while ago!). The result: perhaps the most expansive compilation of its kind, in regards to the events that took place at Area 51, and the state of aliens on this planet. Believe, I tell you! Believe!_

_After consulting with a friend and collaborator of mine, Martin Solsvik (cinematographer, SFX guy and co-director of some of my previous works), we blared Numan tunes, watched some stop-motion shorts he'd made, had fun with film prints and agreed on a shared vision for this next project. Ask him and he's already on board. How long that'll last into production, who knows, but viewers NEED TO KNOW. I hope I can trust you to make that possible once again._

_Sincerely,_

_Kelly Shiragami, screenwriter_

* * *

...

* * *

Adapto Sapiens II: Pretender

Screenplay

by

The Toa of Science Fiction

* * *

...

* * *

Black.

Begin with a white humming - faint.

Add a little whistle of the wind, and the drip-drip of (water in a cave?).

FADE IN:

Image of a purple Decepticon insignia, eyes glowing a fuzzy, malevolent red.

Synthesizer music slowly begins to ramble, building little –

SUPER: September

\- by little, introducing a brass section –

SUPER (below previous): 1988

\- by little, adding electronic drums -

SNAP TO:

Black.

\- by little, suddenly fading in intensity, almost inaudible, until...

All instruments CRESCENDO - a harsh, intense flourish! This musical prologue cuts out, and we begin. Silence.

FADE IN:

**EXT. WHITE SANDS DESERT – NIGHT**

XLS.:

Still.

First the pearly white moon comes into view, and slowly its light reveals the rest of a pristine desert around midnight. Barren, save a few billowing dunes and the whistle of the wind. In waves, stars begin to reveal themselves, white pinpricks which flare up and settle into the background again.

One of these pops out: an orange pinprick, which soon becomes a fiery orb. At first, this seems like an anomaly - some SFX mishap, perhaps, or some weather balloon burning in the distance. But as its intensity only builds, distant groaning sounds commence, approaching in sync with this UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT.

Soon it takes definition as it passes overhead, ROARING furiously as we follow it to its point of contact with the ground. Sands are thrown up in all directions, followed by the delayed report of a solid THUD.

CUT TO:

A closer, slightly angled perspective of the crater and the craft inside. It is cooled back to its neutral silver color, spherical and perfectly smooth – not what you’d expect of an object from space. It sizzles slightly.

CLOSE ON: a red-eyed RABBIT, illuminated by moon and stars, curious, tilts it head and moves forward.

PULL BACK: zoom out, revealing the size of the pod relative to the approaching rabbit – it has a diameter of about thirty feet, and the rabbit takes its place a (supposedly) safe distance away from the craft.

The rabbit continues to gaze at the alien craft, until a loud POP and HISS crack the pod open like... like an egg. And the egg’s hatching! A minute crack appears on the side of the pod facing the rabbit. It turns and starts to run away, aimlessly kicking up sand before gaining traction.

A shiny, mercury-like substance oozes onto the sand from the pod, almost the same color but just a bit lighter, crawling silently across the ground at an alarming rate.

INSERT: The rabbit’s red eyes only widen as it continues to scurry across the sand, suddenly appears to stop.

The night desert is stark, flat and silent. The rabbit is yanked back, caught in the trap of the approaching mercury, is slowly consumed by it. The alien liquid wraps itself around the small creature, giving the appearance of eating it alive. It does not.

Several hundred feet from the pod, the substance slowly begins to swirl, spin, warp. It stretches into a tower of sorts, flowing up and down.

From the tower emerge two thin, spindly branches, like arms; the base splits into two equally gangly legs. Slowly, the rough shape hunches over, curling its limbs into a shape you might recognize.

It is a rabbit.

This new creature, the imitation-rabbit, slowly solidifies. Takes definition. Texture. Then... color. It almost looks like it could blend in with the midnight desert would it not be for the red of its eyes... and the purple of the Decepticon insignia on its leg. It turns its head as neck muscles solidify into a mesh of otherworldly mechanics. It opens its mouth reflexively, and a little of its still-liquid self appears to dribble out. It bends over, almost seems to slurp it up.

Tentatively, this new alien creature takes a step forward, sinks into the sand, slowly recovers. Blinks several times. Makes adjustments to its frame. It takes another step, this time not sinking quite as much.

Another step. Another fall, another recovery.

Another step. Success!

SUPER: the initial tracking shot of the desert, now showing the invading rabbit disappearing behind a dune; against the expelled corpse of its template, which lays eviscerated and warped but completely whole against the ground.

CROSSFADE:

**EXT. AIR FORCE DESERT BASE – NIGHT**

ESTABLISHING: an aerial view of the desert base in question, illuminated in floodlights so as to draw comparison to a football field.

We hear the electronic hum of the lights. Garbled radio chatter grows louder, dictating commands, codes, et cetera. Soon operators overlap each other. Now live speakers are shouting orders, operating noisy machinery, all things you would expect from a place as busy as AREA 51, Nevada. This noise drops some, but lingers as the shot changes.

Down on the ground, those lights in question shine shadows on everything as Captain THOMAS WINSTON (callsign: “Thunderwing”) steps out of a building, helmet in left hand, dressed for flying. He starts walking.

A fellow pilot – callsign: HERCULES – takes his place alongside him, matching his stride, helmet in left hand as well. They pass through a crowd of brightly-dressed techs.

HERCULES

_So, what’s up for tonight, boss?_

WINSTON

_You didn’t hear already?_

HERCULES

(sarcastically)

_Apparently, I was asleep or something._

WINSTON

_Apparently. A couple combat exercises, nothing too fancy, unless you count those new drones we’ll be up against. Even seen ‘em yet?_

HERCULES

_Nope, I have not._

WINSTON

_Well, you will. As a kid you probably said “Oh, I wonder what cool tech they have at that Area 51 place!” ... And I can see you’re still wondering._

Hercules stops in front of his jet: a gunmetal-gray F-16 (or something like it, modified with a slightly larger wingspan and sharper edges, among other, more subtly alien features).

HERCULES

_Guess I’ll find out what all those years of flight school were for. Best of luck, boss!_

Winston nods to him, and the two share a special handshake. He climbs the ladder leading into his cockpit.

Winston continues onward to his own, several jets down from Hercules’. He climbs in.

POV: shot from the jet’s dashboard of Winston climbing into his cockpit, cursorily taking inventory, strapping in, closing his canopy, muttering to himself.

WINSTON

(providing facetious commentary)

_Let’s do this. Yo, taxi!_

He takes the joystick blankly, more a habitual thing than anything. The sounds of engines FIRING swell almost musically. Winston initially grins at the familiarity of that sound. But...

CUT TO: his jet moving across the base. Due to the crowds of people on the ground its wheels are obscured, and once they turn to see it they all stand suspiciously, then begin to scatter, initially at walking speed.

Hercules observes the growing scenery. The reflection off his canopy shows techs and taxis first moving slowly...

...and then running.

HERCULES

(startled, confused)

_What the...?!_

Gunfire – violent bursts of light not quite in sync with their reports. Bloody mist. Sparks as lights are hit and short out. CLANGING as they hit metal, sometimes ricochet to find new targets.

Hercules climbs out of his cockpit, throws his helmet aside, finds his ladder gone, leaps down, rolls, barely gets to his feet before three distinct bullets tunnel a dotted line from his chest, to his throat, to his forehead. He is jerked back and collapses again. He lies still, and now made incomplete.

Winston’s fighter jet rolls through over bodies on its own, marked almost entirely by its blinking navigation lights. We see Winston struggling in the cockpit, and audio of his increasingly frustrated cries grows louder amidst gunfire, yells and various crashes.

WINSTON

_Let me out! Help!_

Silent.

The cockpit appears to explode inaudibly. The canopy becomes a reddish-brown haze.

Still. Silent.

Silent, save that white noise still in the background. Somewhere, a hinge whines. Glass shatters (and un-shatters?).

Still. Silent.

Winston’s jet remains motionless, navigation lights on its wingtips blinking red-green, red-green. We see the right side (the green side) of the craft.

\- Then! -

Slowly, the texture of the wing begins to change. Soften. Become malleable. Break apart on the molecular level.

Even as the right wing recedes like sheathed claws into the fuselage, its light continues to blink green, never once obscured or distorted.

Paneling all along the plane begins to fold. Slide into other parts. Emerge as new pieces. Crawl along until the whole vehicle is now a skeleton with odd parts hanging out. Now we see both the red and green navigation lights. Neither wavers, just keeps blinking. We see the star-white taillights as well.

An arm emerges. Then another. We see them curl up, almost like those of a (rabbit).

Legs protrude from the fuselage, too. They curl up as well, reach out as if to find their footing and haul the creature upright; not quite yet.

Shoulders separate themselves from the top of the body, creating a neck and something resembling a head. This head resembles that of the invader we’ve already seen. The one that claimed the (rabbit). After a moment, it takes a form more accommodating of its tasks ahead.

Then it changes again. Its limbs warp, folding back into one another. Straightening out. The nosecone slides into its body and re-emerges as a new appendage.

The rest of the Transformation appears to accelerate, culminating in a creature curled up into a ball. Slowly, it stands up. Humanoid. We see now that it bears splotches of bottle-green and sickly gold. Its navigation lights continue to blink. The telltale insignia is illuminated against its arm.

The Decepticon’s eyes open: red.

It takes its steps with confidence now, strolling across the base and out of frame, almost completely silent.

FADE TO:

Black.

Still. Silent. Hold here for several moments.

FADE IN:

**EXT. SWAMP – DAY – DREAM**

Animal calls. Warped, startling. Perhaps otherworldly. Certainly not just indigenous swamp creatures.

The water is grey; it reflects the dull green of the land. The sky is lost to a low fog, or simply does not exist here.

Pan up to reveal JOSEPH COLTON standing by the water, dressed in some version of combat attire, pistol in hand, expression readily stoic (or simply blank).

He stands there for a while, assessing his surroundings. Every new call turns his head. His gun slowly comes up. Tense, his years of training and experience abandoning him, he tries to call out into the murk. Any noise he makes is completely inaudible.

He looks down. By his feet, at first it looks like... a SEVERED LEG, dipped in blood, now scabbing over and blackening. He hears a child screaming, face briefly contorts as if in terrible agony –

BLINK

\- and the severed appendage is gone. He wonders if it was ever really there. He doesn’t look like he just had his soul ripped into.

A new sound comes from the river in front of him – metallic, groaning, almost musical in tonality. Fearful but suddenly overcome with curiosity, he takes three steps forward, leans over to look through the water. It is rippling. His reflection is continually twisted, shimmying up and down, in and out. His gun drops.

The leaves shake overhead. Mud squelches.

A suspended cymbal crashes. Time-keeping rolls on a snare drum. Children laughing, except... it’s a delirious sound.

Slowly, the water stills, and his reflection clears.

He bends over, almost narcissistic in his curiosity over this image, until we see his relationship to it. We see both examining each other, almost as strangers. Colton waves, the other smiles maliciously. Colton shows his gun to the other, his reflection laughs silently and mouths explosion sounds to the other’s discomfort. Quickly, anyone can see that the reflection is evil.

This is confirmed as it pulls its hands to its face, and appears to peel its own flesh away, revealing the bone-white skull underneath... with bits of something shiny poking through. We hear – feel – the noise as the reflection scratches away its façade of a skull, showing the grinning shark’s mouth, and then the rest of a clockwork deformity.

Colton tries to go for his pistol but the reflection reaches a lanky, spiked arm matted with mud and blood through the water, digging into Colton’s chest and PULLING him through the mirror into another place:

**EXT. JUNKYARD – NIGHT – DREAM (CONT’D)**

Colton stands alone, retaining himself and his clothes but his gun confiscated.

He stands in the middle of what appears to be a... junkyard. He looks down. Halfway up to his shins in what appears to be remnants of every material, from every time and place in the universe. Rock. Metal scraps. Glittering bone. Discarded weapons and alien ammunition. Spears.

He looks up. This mess stretches to the horizon, and at the horizon... some alien light among pure black, seeming to sing faintly like a billion out-of-tune sopranos. It’s like a sun, but he knows that there’s no such thing in this place. A black hole, maybe, but not a sun.

Bit by bit, the ground begins rumbling. Colton senses it quickly, tries to pull his feet free from the ground, finds he cannot, struggles even harder. He doesn’t want to give up, even as these dead remains do something strange:

At first it seems like they’re crawling up his legs, trying to encase him. Disciplines meaning nothing in this no-world, he attempts to shrink back even as he’s surrounded, but quickly notes how they just continue on their ways.

They’re floating. Levitating away, piece by piece. He looks out, and the phenomenon stretches on until the end of his vision.

That strange star seems to wrap around the land. He spins in place to see it, brushing aside floating debris.

And then he notices himself becoming lighter and lighter. He tries to find something, anything to anchor himself to the ground! He brushes away debris and finds that his feet have been suspended in midair, poking through the bottom of a layer of dust and shards.

He’s floating now, floating into the empty void. He clamps and unclamps his jaw, just trying to find some verbal response, some way to acknowledge that he is dreaming before he can become lost in this unreal place forever!

He floats among the other dead things of all Creation into the void, away from the ring of unearthly white light. The last noises audible to his ears are some sort of chant among the voices of the light, slowly echoing out into nothingness.

**INT. QUARTERS – JAPAN – PITCH BLACK – REALITY**

A sudden, startled grunt. Panting. A lamp flickers on.

He looks around in his bunk, eyes slowly adjusting to real darkness. He’s sweaty, cold, breathing laboriously. His hand comes to his face, wiping sweat off his eyebrows.

He sighs heavily, throws his sheet aside and steps to the floor. He’s already mostly dressed. Impulse leads, and after a premonition like that, he follows.

**EXT. HARBOR - JAPAN – NIGHT (GRAVEYARD SHIFT)**

XLS:

Still.

Colton walks across an empty Japan base. Nothing moves except himself.

Silent.

In the background, we can see odd shapes being formed by shadows thrown in moonlight. Military bases don’t typically allow for this kind of eerie effect, but this isn’t much of an ordinary military base.

CUT TO:

Colton reaches the pier, sits down, dangles his legs over the water.

The shadow behind him clears, first as a pair of blue eyes, then the outline of some giant, like a statue thrown together out of Peterbilt truck parts. CONVOY.

A little groan as the gigantic AUTOBOT shifts its weight. This act should greatly disturb the whole pier; instead it is accomplished with a finesse many may find unnerving.

CONVOY

_No rest for the righteous._

Colton, having given no prior indication of awareness to the Autobot’s presence, is not surprised at all.

COLTON

_Guess you could say that._

A moment of silence is shared between the two of them. They stare out into the water, unobstructed by ships nor buoys of any sort. The moon looks some kind of blue-green.

CONVOY

_You’ve seen it, haven’t you?_

COLTON

(curiously)

_Seen what?_

CONVOY

_The end. Or..._ (doesn’t need to finish the thought)

The alien’s perception is uncanny, but Colton no longer seems so surprised. He understands fully after a moment of digestion. Not THE END, but simply one possible scenario. Internally, Colton can describe his own experience as such.

CONVOY (CONT’D)

_They’re coming back. Decepticons don’t accept defeat._

COLTON

_Well, neither do we, do we? ... We’re soldiers, all of us. Go, and go, and go, until either our home is safe, or it isn’t. And if it isn’t, it’s because we’re dead. (chuckles) And if THAT happens, what’s left to defend?_

Convoy nods subtly, preparing a response. Both soldiers continue to look straight out into the bay, never once at each other. The water here is calm, (almost?) dead.

CONVOY

_More than you would believe. You’ve heard our story before._

Colton nods confirmation. Convoy does not (need to?) see it.

The water splashes against the docks, a little more loudly now.

COLTON

_Like the view?_

CONVOY

_It’s not the view I’m looking for._

COLTON

_Meaning?_

CONVOY

_They’re somewhere, out there, right now. You know that. And soon they’ll be here, right here among us._

COLTON

_And we’ll be put to good use._

CONVOY

_Maybe._

More silence.

Colton repositions himself on the pier. Looks over, sees now that Convoy has been sitting in the same position this whole time, his legs curling up under the deck and still halfway underwater. The two continue to contemplate, not as friends or chums but as two soldiers who can’t sleep (one at all, the other right now).

COLTON

_What was ‘before’?_

CONVOY

_Not much any of us can remember, as you know. No exceptions. The others possibly know even more._

COLTON

_But what do YOU know – you, yourself?_

CONVOY

_Less. Only that I should be glad I don’t remember more._

_..._

_We’ll have news soon._

CUT TO:

An alarm on the wall of a building goes off, and emergency lights suddenly blare bright red.

Elsewhere, the radio tower becomes a veritable Christmas tree and accompanying choir.

Another klaxon next to the human and accompanying Autobot comes to life. They both see it. Now, we also see that Convoy bears deep red and blue armor, and more details regarding his figure. For a moment, his eyes glow... a kind of turquoise. Then they return to their normal cold blue.

COLTON

(trying to sound casual)

_Cool trick._

CONVOY

_Anyone can learn._

These alarms all blare red. Galvanized Iron is being called into action.

**INT. GALVANIZED IRON HANGAR – JAPAN BASE – ALMOST DAWN**

POV: Shot from the balcony overlooking most of the hangar. GALVANIZED IRON SOLDIERS gather around the feet of PROWL, SKIDS, GRIMLOCK and Convoy. In the center of the room, PERCEPTOR operates a large holographic display, punching in information and communicating with some human techs. Overhead, heavy lamps buzz, excited. Everything gathers a fuzz around it. The Autobots’ forms throw shadows over themselves, an alien effect in a fully lit room.

Colton takes his place alongside fellow G.I soldier DUKE. Neither is dressed very formally, nor is anyone else at the meeting. Duke is in cartoon pajama pants, running shoes and a Galvanized Iron T-shirt. Colton examines the pants, finds Duke watching him. The two reach a silent agreement that this is not awkward.

Up on the balcony, GENERAL CLAYTON “HAWK” ABERNATHY looks down over his men, machine and human, rests his hands on the guardrail. Clears his throat not quite silently, readies his famous outdoor voice. As all eyes are on him, in all manner of dress and undress, he sees them slowly take a position of attention.

Still. He is ready to speak.

ABERNATHY

_As you are all probably well aware, we’ve pinged UFOs as of approximately 400 hours. Unknown number, unknown size, high velocity but precisely controlled and rapidly decelerating as they entered our atmosphere. We’ve tracked one of these to somewhere in the Western region of the United States..._

Abernathy gestures to Prowl, who is now standing next to Perceptor by the holo-display. Heads turn.

ABERNATHY (CONT’D)

_Prowl will provide further details. You have the floor._

Perceptor activates the large device, which shows diagrams of the UFO’s trajectory, orbiting the Earth and gathering speed.

PROWL

_We believe this to be a Decepticon craft. Our strategy is to head to the area of the crash site with two troops and four - ..._

He does not finish.

Footsteps.

Even on a mechanical face made up of sliding panels, Prowl’s discomfort and even anger are made apparent.

Having just entered through the open hangar doors are four newcomers: HIGHTOWER, OVERLOAD, RAMPAGE and TRENCH. Each is a Constructicon, a glorified hostage taking the form of this world.

PROWL

(almost growling)

_Get them out of here._

He intends to give them no say in the matter. Wheels turning freely on his arms, the police car simply stands there, waiting for them to recognize that they are not welcome. They know.

CONVOY

_Let them stay._

Heads turn to him, including Duke’s and Colton’s. The two of them stand around Skids’ shins, curious in their own ways how this will play out. Prowl’s wheels continue turning, the way they do when a Transformer is thinking.

CONVOY (CONT’D)

_They’ve shown little resistance, even taken more earthly forms, as per your orders. We need all the help we can get._

Prowl looks as if he wants to cackle.

PROWL

(quietly)

_You’re hopelessly naive. We lost our Monger protecting you from these cockroaches; look how that’s turned out._

Convoy makes the firmness of position known, moving to stand next to the Constructicons. Galvanized Iron continue to watch, amused and concerned all in one. The other three Autobots do the same, although their own emotions on the matter are not clear.

The lamps overhead continue to buzz. They now have something of a darker tinge to them, something less yellow and more... green.

On the balcony, Abernathy continues to watch. He wants this briefing to continue in a civil, professional manner. He’s a little perplexed by what he sees.

CONVOY

_They stay._

His eyes glow a lighter color, matching that of the lamps. For a moment, he looks even more like the late MONGER BLITZKAISER. Colton cranes his head back to see him...

He’s confused; back?

That’s right – he’s standing by the Convoy’s leg. He’s perhaps even more perplexed than Abernathy is.

Silent.

Prowl backs down. Perceptor speaks. It’s a foreign noise, but not surprising. They’ve done most of this before.

PERCEPTOR

_You will depart for the U.S. within two hours. Human troops Smiley and Zeta will accompany Skids, Prowl, Grimlock and a pack of Destrongers. You will track the Decepticon, find them and eradicate with utmost prejudice. In the meantime (a little forced, unpracticed in conversational nuance) we will keep our ears to the ground... and our eyes to the sky._

Prowl glares at Convoy, but for now his fire is gone. Everyone else is ready to get on with it. Up on the balcony, Abernathy lets loose an inaudible sigh.

The lights continue to buzz.

DUKE

(whispering to Colton, observantly)

_Do aliens have siblings like we do? I think we just saw something like that._

Colton looks to his right and sees Duke right next to him. For a moment he’s surprised. Then he gives a subtle shrug of his shoulders.

Convoy looks back to the Constructicons, nods. His eyes appear GREEN for a moment, but quickly fade to blue again.

RETURN TO:

Black.

We hear a rhythmic tone in the background, like some form of Morse Code, ascending and descending as it clicks. It’s undoubtedly an alien sound. We cannot decipher and therefore cannot know this, but here is its meaning:

DECEPTICONS MOBILIZE STOP RENDEZVOUS AREA 51 NEVADA STOP WITHIN TWELVE SOLAR HOURS STOP.

This message repeats several times against the blackness.

Music rises and falls to its rhythm, matching its pitch. It’s synthesizers, not at all out of place, perhaps simply part of the message that a Decepticon would hear.

Then slowly fades out again, and soon the message it was accompanying diminuendos until it is nothing at all.

Dusty wind howls and brittle weeds rustle, leading into the change in scenery.

FADE IN:

**EXT. GAS STATION – ARIZONA – AFTERNOON**

EST.:

We see it from overhead: There’s a thin dirt road stretching through the middle of reddish-brown dust and the occasional weed bush. It snakes, winds, happens to be more driven-over in some areas and barely touched in others. There’s not much around for miles.

PAN LEFT

But it’s not the road we’re looking for – it’s the two-pump gas station bleached and corroded by weather, some hundred feet of to one side of this little path.

Its pumps must be from the 60s at the latest, the long-gone neon sign on the roof broken into so many pieces it’s impossible to tell what it once read. Now bright red paint is splattered on one side into shapes resembling words, although even now it’s fading into something not even orange. This isn’t invisible like the neon, simply illegible.

**INT. GAS STATION – CONT’D**

An old man – the CLERK – stares aimlessly from behind the counter. He wears a grubby gray-blue polo with his name scratched off the name tag. He’s unkempt, gray-bearded, greasy, incredibly bored. Candy wrappers and the odd soda can or two have come to rest on the counter and the surrounding floor.

POV:

We see the gas station’s interior through the clerk’s eyes: two aisles of snack foods with their shelves more than half cleared out, the window wall on his left lined with miscellaneous old magazines and small hardware. On the far right, empty and inoperative fridges now double as storage for cardboard boxes.

We hear only two sounds: that faint white noise, and the clerk’s own (slightly moist) breathing.

There’s a new sound: the loud, raspy THRUM of an approaching vehicle. Nervously, surprised, without thinking, the clerk sweeps the wrappers off the counter and onto the floor. He peers out the window nearest the cash register on his left, facing the pumps outside.

The RIG outside pulls to a halt in front of the pump farther from the clerk. The engine noise cuts out. He observes it curiously. It’s a nasty acid-green and white thing with a streak of purple running along the driver’s side door. And is that a SNOWPLOW on the front of that 18-wheeler?

Quickly, the driver exits and dismounts – a wiry punk clad in jeans and an offensive T-shirt, golden-haired with streaks of purple and blue. ROADBLOCK.

The clerk gawks, a little dumbfounded, as the punk swings open the door, provoking nothing more than a broken CLIK from the bell at the top. He turns to face the clerk.

ROADBLOCK

_Why, good mornin’, mister!_

The clerk at first only continues to stare. For some reason, he thinks he should be afraid. Consciously, he’s not. Yet. But this man did get the time of day wrong.

This punk continues to look around, silently noting what a dump this place is.

ROADBLOCK (CONT’D)

_So, how much’s gas around here, kind sir?_

CLERK

(stuttering)

_E- e- a- et- eighty cents a gallon._

He doesn’t mean to stutter, but he’s nervous. The punk approaches the counter, glancing to his right out the window at his rig.

ROADBLOCK

_Now, do I pay you here for that sweet car nectar?_

The clerk nods. Agreeably, the punk pulls out several bills from a pocket, lays them on the counter. The clerk does not pick them up. Scatterbrained, the punk looks back at the shelves of snacks, seeing potential.

ROADBLOCK (CONT’D)

_Any recommendations, food-wise? I’m a mighty hungry boy!_

The clerk considers the question for a moment, then responds.

CLERK

(Lying)

_What’s left is the best stuff._

Roadblock takes this in, grabs several assorted candy bars, returns to the counter. He slides them across with the accompanying bill and several coins, where they come to rest next to his gas payment. He sniffles.

The clerk continues to assess the young man. Why is he nervous? The punk assesses him back, fully aware of the older man’s suspicions.

ROADBLOCK

_Let me see what else my baby needs._

The clerk stares, not imagining this punk to be the parental type. The punk sniffles again. He raises his arm to point outside.

ROADBLOCK (CONT’D)

_That’s my baby. Love ‘er like a narcissist loves himself! Gotta take care of yer baby, right, sir?_

Not waiting for a response, he opens the door. A bit of dust whooshes through, he whoops wildly, staggers only a little as he pulls an orange bandanna over his face and begins to jog towards his precious baby.

The clerk is even more fascinated than before as he sees the punk open the door, get in, and...

It’s ROCKING – the truck, rocking back and forth! The windows, he sees now, are tinted pure black, and glint madly against the sun. But he wants to see what’s happening!

A moment of silence, and that same stillness. Waiting.

Finally, Roadblock emerges, now holding some kind of long pipe in one hand, hair ruffled and a big grin on his face, even if his mouth is hidden.

He pushes open the door with one hand, walks in, pulls down his bandanna. There’s a subtle contour line of dust, almost like a tan line, but his eyes have not been irritated at all.

The clerk shrugs this off; perhaps he’s just trying to look the part, and the dust outside wasn’t bad. And one glance outside says it’s not. And that...

Now the rig is – it can’t be – no, it is! – It’s PULLING AWAY. He’s wide-eyed.

ROADBLOCK

_Yeah, it does that sometimes. Gotta let ‘em roam, y’know?_

And the clerk? He’s very afraid now.

SLOW FADE TO:

Black.

The Decepticon audio signal resumes.

BLINK:

A crowd, primarily of displaced Japanese citizens, looks on in fear.

BLINK:

An elderly woman holding an ancient Japanese weapon runs at something with a jarring speed.

BLINK:

A skeleton solidifies sizzles into shape; its eyes light up red.

RETURN TO:

Black.

The signal continues this entire time, now with a slightly altered soundtrack.

A distant BOOM. WOOSH. Silence. SPLASH. Waves rustle, a distant bell rings and men shout as if in distress.

FADE IN:

**INT. CAVE – ALASKA – STORMY DAY**

A silhouette crawls into the mouth of the cliffside hidey-hole, marked by its (flickering, sometimes sparking) red eyes and occasional flashes of blue armor. Eventually, blinding shoulder headlights come on, and the Decepticon makes an audible SQUEAK of shock!

Its lights fall on the corpse of an old car, rusted, unrecognizable as anything specific now.

The Decepticon crawls closer in the tight space, fascinated with what it sees. It’s almost a shrine of sorts.

In some remarkably human gesture, the Decepticon rests a mangled, wet hand on the iron-brown hood of the vehicle. Outside, the waves and fishermen continue to do their evils. Infuriating!

RETURN TO:

Black.

The signal reiterates itself again, just continues. Wolves BARK and GROWL at one another. Dozens of paws CRUNCH on leaves. Something massive whirs overhead, strikes a tree, crunches like so many snapping bones.

SLOW FADE IN:

**EXT. NORTH AMERICAN FOREST – THE PREVIOUS NIGHT**

The wolves are not rabbits; one – the leader – is brave enough to approach, and soon the rest follow. The pod has flattened out several trees into a sort of nest, yet still touches the ground.

Within the pack, they share a glance, come to a decision almost immediately. Their eyes move as one back to the wreckage. The pod gleams in the moonlight. It’s intriguing, isn’t it? Could be food.

They at first crawl over the broken limbs. One step each, two, three, four, five.

One yelps in pain, draws back. Three more look back, decide to follow it. That leaves two wolves to approach the pod.

CUT TO:

The four wolves hear their brethren yowl, cut out. They move off-screen in an ambiguous direction, quickly meet the same fates anyway. Their howls sound as one, but are silenced even quicker.

A new wolf walks into frame: CARNIVAC. There’s blood in his teeth, on his mesh-fur, matted against his paws. He’s as tall as your average man, a little more than twice again as long, a silvery-blue color to his fur. His eyes are, once again, red.

He licks his lips with a silvery tongue. Good meal!

SLOW FADE TO:

Black.

SUPER: An oscilloscope image of the Decepticon signal. It continues to dance as the background music rises and falls.

Rises and falls.

Rises and falls.

Swell!

Modulate.

Drop.

Crescendo!

Synths strike a dissonant chord, then ascend...

...And continue to ascend...

...Now descending as well...

Fermata. Final chord.

The line changes color multiple times.

The final clear image the oscilloscope produces is of a ring spinning in a hyperactive ring. Things resembling... fangs? — at the bottom of the circle, blinking in and out of existence.

From there it becomes more obscure, erratic.

The signal slowly fades out, and the image dies down as the music follows.

Silence. Static noise.

Hold there.

Hold.

An even alarm, beeping: Stand clear!

Now the sounds of machinery are reintroduced. Trucks. Men. Something between the two.

More dogs bark: different ones. It’s a sound like a million tons of grinding metal and crackling engines, sped up and pitched down, layered on top of itself. A pack. They’re BANGING against something like a fence. Excited, aren’t they?

BLINK IN:

**EXT. JAPAN BASE – (ROUGHLY) DAWN**

The fiery orange eyes of Destronger dogs form a dancing light show as they slam against their pen walls, pushing, jostling, ready to kill. Not quite yet. They’re laid out in a grid pattern, cells within cells, more for their own protection than to those outside.

WIDEN: G.I soldiers walk across the base in various levels of combat attire. Perceptor oversee maintenance and aids in some of the heavy lifting, as do Convoy and Grimlock. In the early light, everything at first appears as a black silhouette, a shadow.

GRIMLOCK

(O.S, muffled by background noise; best growling caveman imitation)

_Me Grimlock like heavy lifting!_

Like any collection, this group of simple scenes has its centerpiece: the massive jet fills that role – the Big One. Everything passes beneath its omniscient gaze. And it’ll be dropping them out of the sky soon.

Colton, dressed in his old Army uniform, carries several satchels to a crewmember.

TECH

Nice threads, Joe. Feeling nostalgic?

Colton hands off the bags one by one, chuckling agreeably, if not to facetiously portray discomfort.

COLTON

Maybe.

CUT TO:

In the distance, Colton (silently to us, inaudible over the hustle and bustle of the rest of the base) converses with some other of the maintenance crew – friendly enough conversation. He begins walking back when a voice slices through the noise: Skids, of course.

SKIDS

(exaggeratedly raspy)

_Yo, Joe!_

Seeing the source of the voice, Colton finds the Autobot standing in front of the Destrongers’ pens. Convoy is with him. He moves toward them.

He stops for a moment, gathers what he can from their surroundings. Behind Skids’ leg is some sort of control module, accessible to the Autobots as a series of pedals and levers, and to humans as a panel covered in knobs and readouts.

COLTON

_Got us a job here?_

Skids nods redundantly.

In the background, the Destrongers continue to howl – louder now that we’re with them.

SKIDS

_We need to get three Destrongers out of there. (He points to the pen, then to the human control panel.) On my signal, you flip the red knob clockwise, and you count to three before twisting it back like it’s your little brother’s nipple. Convoy, you’ll be my spotter. If any dogs get out... do your thing._

Convoy nods. Colton takes his place at the control panel, takes a moment to find the BIG RED KNOB. In truth, it’s no bigger than a guitar volume knob, and currently it sits at the zero mark.

Skids takes his place in front of one of the pen doors; it crackles with a little (60 million volts, to be exact), yet the Destronger is fazed only just enough. Experienced but still nervous for his own skin, Skids makes several human gestures similar to a runner before a big race.

SKIDS

_Ready?_

Colton and Convoy both nod to him.

SKIDS

_On five. One... two... three... four... FIVE!_

Colton twists the knob, and for a moment the voltage surges before fizzling out again. Skids runs straight into the chaos. Around him it is a horrible mess as he appears to be surrounded on all sides by the dogs. They bark, scream. Metal clangs. Whimpers. More barking.

Convoy wrestles one of the dogs to the ground. On Colton’s hand, he counts three fingers held up, throws the knob back for all he’s worth. Electricity surges. CLANG. GURGLE.

CLOSE ON: One of the Destrongers – a horrible mockery of the adorable pug with the left side of his face smashed in – growls, spits at us, tries to break free.

WIDEN: He’s not going anywhere. Skids holds him by a chain running out of his right arm, as he does one other.

Convoy hands him the third dog on a similar chain. Skids is practically a dog lady in the park.

Colton exhales.

SKIDS

_Yeah, me too. Say hello to CUJO, WELT, and our newest addition to the gang: FANGSTER. Cujo, Welt, Fanster, say hello._

At the mention of their names, the dogs claw into the ground.

CROSSFADE:

**EXT. PACIFIC ISLAND – CLOUDY DAY**

The Decepticon signal, warped, reaches the ears of an older bunch: SHOCKWAVE and STARSCREAM.

They’re disorganized: discarded and spare parts litter their little jungle world. Deforestation gives way to odd, otherworldly contraptions. Starscream stands next to Shockwave, right arm now a mangled mismatch to the rest of his body. A Monger did that.

Shockwave, meanwhile, operates the transmitter dial on his head with one hand, yellow cyclops eye blinking to its rhythm. It stops, and his eye blinks one last time before coming on again.

STARSCREAM

_Well?_

SHOCKWAVE

_Reinforcements._

Both understand what this means. Without hesitation, they obey.

CUT TO:

Shockwave walks into the ocean as Starscream stands behind him. The two Decepticons Transform — Starscream becomes an Earth jet with kibble, Shockwave a sort of seafaring vehicle. Both take off at similar speeds.

We hold here as they both fade into the horizon. Thunder rumbles and lightning strobes – one last reminder of the MONGER that did this to them.

Silence for a few moments.

Wind rustles the remaining trees one more time. We hear the old contraptions fall apart as if on command. No usable evidence.

BLINK IN:

**EXT. AREA 51 FRONT GATE – DAY**

A truck pulls up outside the front gates. There is a man waiting there.

No... not a man. BLUDGEON. The skeleton in samurai armor.

Roadblock stops. Rolls down his window.

ROADBLOCK

_What seems to be the problem, officer?_

Bludgeon simply stands there. Roadblock gets out. Matches the Pretender’s stance directly in front of him.

For a moment, neither speaks, nor even moves.

BLUDGEON

_Bludgeon. Name, designation._

ROADBLOCK

_Understood. Roadblock, Wild Card._

Understanding is met with understanding. Roadblock smacks his fellow Decepticon on the shoulder.

ROADBLOCK (CONT’D)

_How ya been, ol’ killer? Let’s get our asses inside!_

He hops back in his truck. The gates buzz open, and Bludgeon follows him through.

**EXT. AREA 51 - CONTINUOUS**

Now, four Decepticons stand across from one another in various positions. Roadblock leans on the hood of his rig; Carnivac picks over the old wreckage from a previous night; Bludgeon sharpens a sword in front of a tank; Roadgrabber – the car crash – cleans his smaller car form. All four are waiting for their commander to arrive.

He does.

A jet ROARS overhead. Clang. Crak. Whir. Grind. Thunderwing drops to the ground in the center of their little circle. He examines each member of his squad. Each sounds off their name as his eyes pass them.

THUNDERWING

_Good. We should expect more to arrive soon._

BLUDGEON

(distastefully)

_Starscream?_

Thunderwing nods. Now comes reinforcing their intent on this world.

THUNDERWING

(concluding)

_“From the inside.”_

ALL

_“From the inside.”_

Some quick shots, not quite one-after-another. Roadblock messes with Bludgeon’s tank. Roadgrabber smacks himself in the face on impulse.

Time passes. More engines overhead: Starscream.

CUT TO:

Thunderwing waits at the gate for Shockwave to get within fifty feet of the base. A black silhouette against the shimmering heat, almost a mirage against the stark brown desert. The gate opens again.

Behind them, Starscream drops to the ground, prosthetic arm thrown loose from the impact. With a moment’s struggle, he relocates it as the Pretenders look on in cruel fascination.

Thunderwing approaches Starscream. Slowly. The Commander sees this, tries to reach a form of attentive salute and is instead wordlessly thrown to the ground. Tries getting back up. Thunderwing kicks him in the chest. Glass shatters and metal creaks. The arm comes loose again, rolls off somewhere.

STARSCREAM

(groaning, muttering)

_How nice to see you!_

Another kick. He rolls over, cockpit on his chest visibly shattered. Thunderwing only looks down on him without pity, without remorse, without any concern over the damage he does. Let this incompetent trash sustain a bit of injury.

STARSCREAM (CONT’D)

_Ooh, what’s this?_

Another kick. We now see that Thunderwing’s feet are clawed. One makes contact with the already-misshapen face, knocking rabbit’s teeth loose within the red flyer’s mouth. Starscream winces briefly, bides his time.

THUNDERWING

_You’re incompetent._

The silver flyer slams his foot downward into his predecessor. Against his will, Starscream groans slightly.

THUNDERWING (CONT’D)

_Arrogant._

Digs his foot under the Commander’s body, flips him over. Kicks him again. The dents and paint scuffles are much more visible now. Loose parts dangle like limbs held to a body by skin alone. Shockwave and the four other Pretenders gather around.

THUNDERWING (CONT’D)

_You failed. We’re here to erase your mistake._

He kicks one last time, and Starscream, laughing, brings his arm up, his jet mode’s machine gun armed. He never gets the chance. Thunderwing wraps his own arm around his victim’s, twists himself and snaps the weapon free of its owner. Bullets hit him several times, but they’re mechanical insects to be shrugged off. Amused, he brings his foot one last time to Starscream’s face, finally knocking his front teeth loose. They tumble to the concrete, along with glass shards and good chunks of the Transformer’s jet mode plating.

One more attempt to fight back! Starscream calls out.

STARSCREAM

_Shockwave! Now!_

No response. As Thunderwing’s head turns, Starscream wrestles himself up and throws himself at the skinnier robot, half-Transforming, jets flaring. Shockwave does not move at all.

INSERT: Thunderwing’s fist Transforms, becoming some clawed apparatus with... brass knuckles? Or something even worse?

He turns, arm swung back, ready for the other Commander’s attack.

THUNDERWING

_Stay down!_

CRAK. Starscream’s nosecone scrunches, he drops to the ground as a half-Transformed ball. He continues to struggle within his own contorted body.

Shockwave moves to hover beside Thunderwing over the broken flyer.

SHOCKWAVE

_Regardless, there was no loyalty to him._

The Pretenders’ leader takes a few moments to let Starscream writhe, for futility to sink in. His groans and moans and various bodily misfires continue for several moments, as the Decepticons and greater world around him remain completely indifferent. Even he himself expects nothing less. After a few moments, he silences his cries of pain and speaks.

STARSCREAM

_Understood... Commander. What... are... your... orders?_

Roadblock giggles at this. As does Roadgrabber. Even Carnivac. Bludgeon’s features hint at a smirk.

THUNDERWING

_I see you’ve denied this world’s form. You and your scientist will reconcile that._

Let it sink in another few moments. No one wants to move and break the tension. Let their commander display his power. Even Shockwave, upon a single glance around at the Pretenders, understands this concept.

Starscream finally wrestles himself free, sending more parts flying in all directions, skidding across the ground, nicking the Decepticons enclosing him. Ah, so fragile he is!

STARSCREAM

_I serve... the same Emperor... you do. I will obey._

Only after this does Thunderwing back away. His work is done. He motions for Roadblock to join him. Seeing this, Roadblock does something we haven’t seen yet.

Eager to show himself off, Roadblock knocks on the hull of his rig. The door pops open, and the truck begins driving forward without him. When it reaches a close enough proximity to the commander, it TRANSFORMS in a flurry of sounds we’ve never heard before, reshaping parts of itself on the molecular level. Panels slide to new places, are bent into new shapes. The form builds on top of itself until it stands around Thunderwing’s eye level.

THUNDERWING

(whispering)

_Keep an eye on them. And... I think you’ll like this place._

ROADBLOCK

_On it, Cap’m. As for you?_

THUNDERWING

_There’s somewhere I have to go. I leave soon, may not return as quickly._

Roadblock nods, returns to the other five Decepticons. As a representative of his leader, he claps his large, metallic white hands together.

ROADBLOCK

_Now, boys! It’s orientation time!_

CROSSFADE:

**EXT. JAPAN BASE – (ROUGHLY) DAWN**

Boarding has begun. The Big One – their aerial transport – opens its rear hatch wide to accept passengers. At least two dozen G.I soldiers in futuristic Autobot battle attire carry their weapons and backpacks as they walk up the ramp. In front of them, Prowl oversees boarding, while Skids and Grimlock keep the Destrongers in check. The Autobot leader sees them, counts the dogs.

PROWL

_We need at least four dogs._

SKIDS

_You’ve never seen these three in action. They’re a unit._

GRIMLOCK

_Me Grimlock agree with wimpy van!_

This inspires some chuckles from the human soldiers, and a grin from Skids. Prowl remains unamused, but he lets them pass.

**INT. THE BIG ONE – CONTINUOUS**

Duke and Colton strap themselves in a convenient distance from one another.

DUKE

_When did Grimlock start talking like that?_

COLTON

_Who knows? He just does it for amusement._

DUKE

_Certainly amusing. I think it pisses Prowl off._

COLTON

_Quiet, he’ll hear ya._

The Destrongers’ RUMBLING GROWLS crescendo as they board the craft. Colton turns to see them coming in, and his eyes pass back out to the figure seeing them off: Convoy.

For a moment, he doesn’t know what he’s looking at, but then he does.

CLOSE ON: Convoy’s eyes are pulsing jade-green again. It fades as Grimlock passes in front of the red-and-blue truck. Dialogue in the background:

GRIMLOCK

_Me Grimlock like flying._

SKIDS

_Get on up there, you mutts!_

The hatch screams shut. Engines come online; not all of them are Earthly. The craft rumbles. Duke grips his harness habitually. Colton notices it – he’s never seen it before, understands instantly.

The pressure seems to build...

...and build...

Colton appears nauseous. Then again, so does every other human.

...and build...

Prowl grips a handrail hanging from the plane’s ceiling.

...and build...

Two of the Destrongers – Cujo and Fangster – quiet down, shake violently with the vessel.

...and build...! Until...

UNNAMED G.I. SOLDIER

(exaggerated southern drawl)

_Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we are airborne._

Colton’s head silently rolls back against the wall. Duke, after several long, deep breaths, looks around, sees everything is still in order. Slowly, he turns to see Colton, seemingly passed out. He nudges him casually. Maybe he was nauseous too, after all.

DUKE

_Whew! Think we’re through it now._

Colton does not respond. His head lolls to one side. Duke knows immediately something is wrong.

DUKE

_Hey! We got something here! It’s Joe!_

And... A sound... It’s familiar. We’ve heard it before – in Colton’s dream.

FADE TO:

Red, with little splatter-style blotches of white strobes of light (like red lightning). White buzzing. Colton’s dream sound continues. Behind it, an atonal music grows, uneven, like dozens of distinct car alarms ascending in pitch at different rates. White comets continue to pass across our vision, threatening, perhaps, to eventually ricochet and come out at us. This never happens.

BLINK IN:

**INT. BLACK VOID – DREAM**

Colton’s back in a dream world. He’s dressed in the same Galvanized Iron uniform, except now it glows red. But... it’s not an evil red, more of a familiar red. Autobot red.

BLINK:

The red Autobot insignia. Accompanying it is a short screech, unnatural, inhuman.

He sees where he is. A flat, silvery world of textured metal floor stretching to infinity in all directions. He looks up. Not a star in that sky, only that looming body like some twisted star.

CONVOY

(off-screen, echoing)

_Captain Joseph Colton._

Convoy materializes into existence next to him. The soldier cranes up out of reflex, sees nothing. Looks farther down. Convoy, standing, on his left, is now his equal in height. Something glows in his chest, fades out quickly.

No words between them, not on this plane where language doesn’t exist.

Low metallic humming. Static. Sounds in reverse.

Distantly, Colton looks up to that grayed star one more time. It seems... fiery, like tendrils of silver flame are reaching down towards them. But that’s ridiculous at this point, anyway.

Silently, Convoy reaches his hand to Colton’s shoulder. The contact launches both into another place.

BLINK TO: 

**EXT. CITY STREET – XXEZZ – DUSK(?) – COLTON’S POV - CONTINUOUS**

A small noise, like ears ringing. This will persist for the rest of the dream.

Colton(?) looks straight ahead. Scaly, tripedal creatures hop/run in every direction, dermal photoemitters going off randomly. It’s grassy on this world, but Colton can’t decide the color of the grass, nor of the pavement.

He looks at his(?) hands. Odd. He has no fingers, only mechanical tools he is incapable of recognizing, mostly blurred out for ease of comprehension. The world is filtered through color-coded lights and bass tones of varying pitch.

He looks down even further, sees tripod legs already moving, shifting into something resembling tank treads. Soon he’s barreling down a gravel(?) road, rocking back and forth, getting the occasional air time as gravity is malleable here.

Colton looks in the sky. Much like before, the star is sort of that lightbulb residual shade as you turn it off. There’s something unstable about it.

Something bumps him, knocks him over. He Transforms, gets to his feet, re-centers himself. Autobots like him are running, rolling, flying away. Among them are a few multicolored giants: Mongers. Now he sees they’re all moving in a certain direction. Is it toward, or is it away?

One of his white-and-red subordinates pulls up next to him, flashes some signal of urgency. He makes some gesture of acknowledgement, turns himself on his treads/legs to face the thing. It’s... Oh, Eternity! –

A large, sort of Mobius-strip vessel adorned in spikes orbits around some central energy core.

A Decepticon Warworld!

Colton(?) knows what he must do. He feels his frame pulsing, throbbing, his heavily color-based vision slowly becoming a wall of monochrome green and grey. He advances slowly towards the thing, seeing flyers pour out of pores everywhere like so many hostile insects marked by neon(?) streaks of orange, purple, red, barely distinguishable now.

It takes him a moment to realize he’s floating. He’s advancing rapidly on the ship. He raises an arm, appears to brush them aside from a distance. One gets close, he appears to slam it back before any contact is made. Energy weapons discharge aimlessly around him. Either he deflects them or can’t feel them.

The ship occupies the entirety of his vision but he’s still miles away. He’s pretty sure he’s fast enough to leave a trail in the sky, but still isn’t fast enough - within the Warworld’s core, a beam emanates downward into the planet itself, pure white.

Not accepting defeat, Colton(?) accelerates his pace towards the craft. It continues to grow before him. His vision goes only greener and greener. He can hear aggressive energy buildup within himself.

THONK.

Something knocks him out of the air, he can’t see what. Still at full power, he tumbles toward the ground, most of his sense of direction lost.

He can feel he’s closer to the ground, but... a new noise. Feels himself slowing down. Eventually, he turns just in time to see the ground STOP several meters from his eyes.

Then he goes up again.

Spinning.

He sees other Autobots, flashing signals of distress. Among them is his red-and-white second-in-command.

HELP TRACTOR BEAM PRIME(?) DO SOMETHING HELP

Colton hears yet another new sound: the various sounds of a place he almost recognizes: Animals. Trees. Some gunfire. Distant explosions.

BLINK (several times, spastic): 

A shot of a jungle place, similar to the one from Colton’s first dream, more lifelike.

Return to this place. He just goes up and up, now hundreds of meters above the ground. He sees Xxezi buildings - towering, curving, multilegged statues - pulled apart, drawn into the light.

At least one of two things are true: (a) the Warworld draws itself up; (b) the planet pulls away.

Soon, Colton can hardly tell that there was ever a Xxezz there. Just a few rocks remain, and some people, adrift in the vacuum. Autobots, mostly. The Warworld passes out of his field of vision.

Decepticon flyers swim among his comrades, and he can see them in their clear colors – his secret energy is gone. He sees frightened Autobots send their final flashes before blinking out. He sees them all go out, like the deaths of stars up close.

He has no choice, he must play dead!

INSERT (spastic):

Close to the ground, filtered through dirt and foliage. Unknown figures move about in front of him, filthy and armed with machine guns.

Return to the Autobot massacre. He’s still, or at least he thinks he is. In front of him, he watches as a Decepticon shuttle stops. A silver figure disembarks on a tether, examines the body, runs it through with hooked antlers. For a moment his vision flares white, but he can’t afford to be seen. He must play dead. He must lower his energy levels. He must...

SLOW FADE TO:

Black. The ringing persists, then suddenly dies down again.

FADE BACK TO:

**INT. THE BIG ONE – DARK**

Colton opens his eyes, gasps for breath. His arms flail wildly, hitting a surprised Duke in the jaw.

Skids’ arm immediately goes toward him, although whether in offense of defense, no one can be sure of at first. After a moment, Colton holds up a hand: “Stop, I’m okay now.”

He swallows, gasps several times.

DUKE

_What was that?_

Colton continues to gasp. Now more soldiers are staring. So is Prowl. Now Grimlock, too.

COLTON

_I saw... I saw... Xxezz._

A curiously concerned look passes between Skids and Prowl.

FADE TO:

Black.

Super: the Decepticon insignia again. Its eyes flare up red, then die down again. The image fades into the black pit of our vision and disappears.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galvanized Iron reach America as back home, something delirious grips the remaining Autobots.

Black. The persistent white noise of existence. The occasional white streak of disturbed film stock.

Shuffling. Groans of metal. More. Rhythmic beeps. Sounds of Transformation. Some large aircraft pulling away, becoming lighter and lighter as it goes. Growling.

FADE IN:

**EXT. SOMEWHERE IN THE DESERT – LATE MORNING**

Grimlock and Prowl stand at the front of the party, with Skids off to one side handling his three dogs on leashes that _thwap_ and whip with every change in tension. Colton, Duke and others stand below, watching this all. Behind the Autobots, brown foothills and the mountains beyond reign supreme over everything.

The Destrongers snap, aimless, baring their grilles at one another. Duke watches it, hardly (but slightly) amused. Prowl simply scowls silently.

PROWL

(to Skids)

_Sometime this week, please._

Skids leaps on top of Fangster, is yanked several yards but stops, gets the dog under control.

Galvanized Iron stand in some simplified form of attention as the Autobot calms his charges, futuristic rifles resting against their chests, backpacks bulging out a good distance from their backs.

Finally, Skids stands up, Destrongers pacified for now, and nods to Prowl and Grimlock. Together, the two metal giants turn towards the mountains at their backs. Prowl raises his arm, points.

PROWL

_There._

Grimlock nods, turns to face Galvanized Iron again, grins his horrible grins (on both sides), turns back to the hills. They watch him slam his fists against the ground, throwing metal around his frame. The sound is almost like the roaring of the reptilian monster he slowly Transforms into.

Finally, a _Gojira_-like deformity swings its massive tail, plants its thick legs, raises its head silently to the sky. Little sparks escape like clouds in frost, and the glowing Autobot-blue eyes look back one last time.

SKIDS

_Follow as best you can. Stay out of sight._

The dino-former obliges, moves with the swiftness of a ninja and almost the volume level.

Skids pats one of his dogs – Welt this time – on the neck: “Just be patient a little longer.”

Prowl moves to take his place at the head of the squadron.

A tumbleweed rolls across the ground; it catches Duke’s eye for a moment before he snaps back to attention.

Still.

PROWL

_We follow the Destrongers. Ready for conflict at any time. You screw up, Decepticon procedure is as follows: “investigate, rectify, erase”._

The warning does not fall on deaf ears.

Skids clicks out a message to the Destrongers – in a similar rhythmic language to the Decepticon beacons. The dogs bark several times as one, and each becomes a slightly different muscle car of some sort.

The cord connecting the dogs to Skids is severed, retracts back into his hand as he too Transforms. It’s his armored form, with the Honda van covered by layers of matte armor and tinted windows. The red stripe on the side obscures the Autobot insignia, turns it into a motif, like a series of abstract tattoos.

Prowl is the last, becoming his armored police car self.

Duke and Colton share one last glance: they’re the leaders of Zeta and Smiley, respectively. Gotta take their places as leaders of their respective groups.

XLS. (WIDE):

One by one, the soldiers begin to occupy the cars, breaking into two groups, lining up, taking whatever seats are available. They’re silent the entire time – only the opening and closing of car doors.

The start of engines.

Grind against dust, gaining traction. Engines roaring as they gain grip. It’s inefficient, but it is – literally – a chance to rev their engines.

Speeding off, one by one. The Destrongers at first zoom off in all directions as if drunk, slowly settle into a focused single-file line. Skids follows suit, then Prowl. They become a dust storm.

AERIAL:

Grimlock passes through the hills, sliding in and out of impossible shadows, almost – but not quite – in the same direction as the five cars.

CROSSFADE:

**INT. CONSTRUCTICONS’ HANGAR – JAPAN – DARK**

It’s a small hangar, almost a cell, made for the sole purpose of housing beings whose volumes could go any which way. The lights are dim and barely working anyway; there are few windows in this building, and through them no light shines.

Three construction vehicles gather in their humanoid forms. They huddle close, like a family awaiting execution, or a gang planning an assassination.

The door opens. Hightower stands in it, sees his brethren, takes two steps, slides the door shut behind himself. In this sparse light, shadow and illuminated fade in and out of one another.

HIGHTOWER

_What’s this?_

Trench turns towards him, eyes narrowed. He wants to trust his ally — his brother, in a less military situation.

TRENCH

_Good. You’re just in time._

The little circle opens, and Hightower takes several steps toward them.

HIGHTOWER

(repeating)

_What is this?_

RAMPAGE

_Starting a revolution, what else?_

For a moment, Hightower is confused. Then he understands. And as the implications dawn on him, becomes confused again. The other three watch it play out in his face, in the blinking of his eyes. They don’t want to hurt him; Trench especially knows they might have to.

XLS.:

The two parties occupy different ends of our view – Trench, Rampage and Overload on the left, Hightower some distance away on the right. A light fixture hangs between them.

After a moment, Trench takes over again.

TRENCH

_We’re not Autobots, we’re not Galvanized Iron, and we’re sure as hell not their dogs. You saw how their leader treated us._

HIGHTOWER

_That’s not all of them._

TRENCH

_Oh, the rest? Insubordinate, incompetent. Any Decepticon could whip them into shape – a DECEPTICON could lead their own enemies to victory!_

Hightower doesn’t like what he’s hearing. His treads turn emptily. Trench’s do the same, in the opposing direction. Micro-Transformations happen along their frames, assembling shovels into gloves, hooks into claws.

They continue to stare each other down. No more inviting, diplomatic words. Time for some REAL brotherly interaction!

CUT TO:

A flat-nosed Peterbilt passes under a floodlight, revealing its red cab, silver stripes, the subtle shape of an Autobot insignia in the grill. It Transforms, becomes the humanoid form of the Autobot Convoy, hovers in front of the Constructicons’ hangar. He can hear shuffling inside, already quiet but muffled now.

CUT BACK TO:

In that same hangar, Rampage and Overload move towards Hightower. Overload has some combination of murder and pity in him, whereas Rampage’s countenance is an empty smirk.

HIGHTOWER

(deathly fearful)

_This isn’t the only way._

Rampage chuckles grimly, without pleasure. Overload makes no change in expression.

All at once, they pounce, surrounding the crane all at once, arms thrown back and suddenly landing a million blows. Metal crunches, they become one big mesh of multicolored melee weapons. Trench joins them in time, and a new shape emerges: three gangsters trapping an initiate between them.

BLINK: Rampage’s face, wanting to enjoy what he’s doing but feeling guilty.

BLINK: Overload’s, fighting to remain determined as he destroys his ally.

BLINK: Trench, much like Overload, but thinking radically different thoughts.

BLINK: Hightower’s entire body, curled up, dented, beaten, struggling to hold together, just to survive. Is this what it’s come to?

Convoy makes his own move, slamming his shoulder through the heavy door and leaping, twirling unnaturally, slamming knees, feet, fists, shoulders into his opponents. Each one rolls backwards, scattered, Trench and Rampage slamming into side walls as Overload would land a strike against the back wall.

Overload is also the first to make a recovery and get to his feet. Soundlessly, Convoy sprints for him, getting within four yards and Transforming, slamming his cab into Overload’s body and barricading through this wall as well. They tumble downward across crumbling asphalt together, Transforming multiple times as they do, landing blow after blow to one another.

Finally, they stop, and Overload practically throws Convoy back up the hill. It appears that he lands with a thud and is knocked offline. The giant lumbers upward to examine his catch, is just a little too surprised as it flings itself upright and punches him in the neck, again between the optics. David once again defeats Goliath as Overload stumbles backward and loses consciousness.

CUT BACK TO:

Hightower, sounding awfully human as he gasps for breath, groans and winces, gets to his feet. Trench and Rampage are doing likewise; now both look like beaten soldiers with resolution, and it fits them. Lethargically, both limp toward their traitorous brother as footsteps mark the assailant behind them.

CONVOY

_Leave it._

Rampage rotates, makes a brief cryptic gesture to Trench, who does likewise. Both charge – Trench at Hightower, Rampage at Convoy. Both are knocked down within three blows, although it takes Hightower tremendous effort, and he collapses into a sitting position next to his offlined brother, facing away from his rescuer.

The Constructicon quickly curls up into a defensive position as if he expects to be attacked again.

POV: we see the wall and floor through Hightower’s eyes, Convoy’s pitch-black silhouette faintly outlined by the overhanging light, Trench’s battered head turned away but still in frame.

CONVOY (O.S)

_I’ll get Perceptor. Keep an eye on these two. Overload is further down._

Convoy is beginning to turn away when we - the beaten crane – look(s) up, make eye contact. For a moment, the whole world is the Wizard of Oz with lasers; we know what this means. The effect lingers a bit as the truck walks away, and normal (neon-tinged; close as we can get to what a Transformer sees “normally”) vision returns.

We hear Hightower’s panting become something resembling sobbing as the internal struggle begins, and the Decepticon soldier does not know whether to do everything he can to express how he feels, or to shove it down and turn it to aggression like any good soldier would. Which of these would represent his own Integrity?

XLS., SLOW PULL BACK:

Hightower remains here, his brother’s lifeless body to his right, the wall in front of him; the light fixture comes into frame; then farther out, the broken wall where Convoy charged in. Continue outward, moving out through the hole Overload made, showing Trench’s body, the beginnings of the world outside. We hear no outside noises, only the hum of the lights and the lightest whistle of breeze through the newly-made tunnel.

FADE TO:

Black. We hear some of the end-product of Hightower’s sobs. It really is a pitiful sound, failing to grasp how humans make it work but trying to articulate all the same agonies.

This noise slowly fades out. The wind howls again – a new wind, scalding hot, draining, aggressive. It’s moving, fast... almost as if...

ROARING! THE ROARING OF - !

FADE IN:

**EXT. SOMEWHERE IN THE NEW MEXICAN DESERT – AFTERNOON**

Five cars race along the road, disturbing everything nearby you can imagine. Animals corpses, plants, trash, even old, unstable huts, long-abandoned.

Inside each one, patient soldiers project their masks of stoicism, look out the windows, feel the wind rustling through their short hair, threatening to make it move at all.

Here’s an interesting one, though:

The convoy (pun not intended) passes a certain gas station we’ve already seen once.

SMASH TO:

Inside, the clerk is hunched over the counter, bills clutched in one hand as the other hangs over. His eyes are still wide, bloodshot, now gathering dust on their dried surfaces; his mouth hangs open, exposing shattered, uneven teeth. His hair is greasy, dead.

SLOW PULL BACK:

The store is a mess: the shelves have been overturned, spilling their contents to the floor in heaps. Something large and sharp was thrown through the glass, which has since also been spray-painted on. There’s a layer of the dust outside on almost everything, really. Quite the gory mess.

We hear the wind and the cars passing, but otherwise it is dead silent.

RETURN TO:

Colton sits in the driver’s position of Skids’ interior. Four other soldiers are in the car with him. Ahead of them, the three Destrongers brake for no man, simply follow their scent.

Super: the outline of the ion trail in front of the Destrongers in purple, shimmering dots.

Back to inside the car.

Fingers tighten and loosen around rifles. Autobot Cyber-armor buzzes, powers up, glows red, powers down again.

SKIDS

(over radio)

_Don’t wear down the double-As._

Silence resumes. They drive on.

Start some music: something dreadful, patient, like a reverberated piano and various percussion (snare, bass, brake drum, tube chimes?). A synth drones a deep vibrato.

The five men in the van look out the windows, look ahead, look briefly at each other, expressions never once changing.

POV:

Colton’s view of the Destrongers in front, kicking up dust, sometimes wavering, veering off the road erratically, but in a controlled formation.

We realize now that the snare drum is counting us off (left, left, left) – we are witnessing a march on wheels.

The Destrongers veer off the road as one unit, throwing dust sideways, briefly highlighting taillights for visibility. We hear their engines growling – (almost) an animal sound.

More synthesizer layers are added, and a single bugle. The march continues.

CUT TO: Grimlock running through the hills, disappearing into random places, surprisingly stealthy; I doubt you’ll catch every time he weaves on or off the screen, but you will wonder where he came from. He’s a heavily-armored T-rex, yet still zips and weaves through every crevice he can, following the barkings of five cars.

SQUEEZE SHUT TO:

Black. The music continues briefly, comes to an atonal crescendo, fades out.

Several moments of silence.

BLINK (so fast you’re sure to miss it without looking for it): the ring. You know which one I mean.

BLINK IN:

**EXT. AREA 51 – DAY**

The base is very much operational as a Decepticon outpost.

XLS.:

ANECDOTE: Bludgeon, still in his smaller form, wields a shovel. He shovels up the remains of some of the corpses left by Thunderwing’s little rampage, throws them on the surface of his tank, walks to another – and it follows him. Repeat.

ANECDOTE: Carnivac is playing with himself – literally. A small wolf and larger wolf appear to be playing fetch-the-ball; this is confirmed when the larger wolf Transforms, holding a debris-ball and chucking it across the base. Excited, the smaller wolf follows it with unprecedented eagerness.

ANECDOTE: Roadgrabber continues to wipe down the hood and roof of his car shell with an oversized rag, humming along to McCall tunes blaring from its radio and leaking through cracked windows.

ANECDOTE: Starscream sits off to one corner, head practically resting against the wall of a barracks, pouti— I mean, plotting. He cradles his dangling prosthetic arm with his left hand. We see him from his right side, red eyes catching our view at just the right angle to glare wildly across his whole face. We can see his oddly-bent double-jointed knees, the hurt hunch in his back, the unbalanced lean towards us. We see parts falling off his frame whenever he flinches, like he’s some dollar-store knockoff of himself. He mutters hateful things under his breath, fearful he will be heard.

This is only the outside of the base – and above ground level. There’s more going on underneath...

DROP TO:

**INT. AREA 51 – UNDERGROUND**

We follow from behind: Thunderwing walks with Shockwave on his left and Roadblock (in middle form) on his right. Down a grey-almost-black corridor illuminated by the occasional red alert light, and the multicolor lights emanating from various points on their own bodies – red, green, white, blue, yellow.

THUNDERWING

_I leave the two of you in charge when I go._

SHOCKWAVE

_Where to?_

ROADBLOCK

_I believe he means Japan._

THUNDERWING

_I do. Your corroborated intelligence agrees that an American military force has a base there. That’s where they also house an Autobot squadron, minus their Monger. As of now, it is mostly unoccupied._

SHOCKWAVE

_Not entirely, however._

THUNDERWING

_I’m aware. I leave tonight. I expect you and your beloved commander to assume more slightly forms by the time I return. Leave the base if you must._

SHOCKWAVE

_Understood._

ROADBLOCK

_Am I still to believe there’s goodies down here?_

THUNDERWING

(playing the fun uncle)

_Oh, yes._

On their left is now a garage-style door, its coinciding keypad unfortunately punched to smithereens, still sparking. The Decepticon leader muscles it open, holds it up as he lets Shockwave and Roadblock step inside. We hold on him the entire time this happens.

ROADBLOCK

_Ooh, cool!_

Then he lets the door down and follows them. The room is all concrete-grey and well-lit by fluorescents which buzz heavily. The centerpiece: a whole array of alien-based military vehicles, gunmetal gray, all lined up on either side. Shockwave and Roadblock pace up and down the aisle.

ROADBLOCK

_Boss, we could do some damage with this stuff!_

THUNDERWING

_Perhaps. Maybe we’ll save some of it for... after._

The implication is obvious: no need now, when no one knows it, yet the world is at our fingertips. Mission first - investigate, rectify, erase.

THUNDERWING

(cont’d)

_“From the inside.”_

ROADBLOCK

_Right. “From the inside.”_

SHOCKWAVE

_Puzzling._

THUNDERWING

_You’ll understand quickly enough. Find a more suitable form, and it’ll become a profound statement. If not, it’s an empty promise._

No need to tell him the rest. The implication – and consequences – have long been made clear. His yellow cyclops eye blinks: “Message received.” His antennae twitch.

Roadblock grins harshly, appears to raise his arm to pat Shockwave on the back, decides against it.

ROADBLOCK

_He’s like that sometimes._

SHOCKWAVE

(not even letting him put the period on the end)

_Noted prior._

Roadblock’s grin hardens even more. He wants to kill this one very much. Oh well, time to see the car show! He half-skips down the aisle one more time, tracing his fingers along hoods and windshields as he goes.

The Pretender moves farther and farther into the harsh yellow lights marking the other end of the immense room, slowly becoming one with it...

DISSOLVE TO:

White (or maybe yellow, the two appear so similar). The hum of the lights evolves into another new sound, harmonizing with that crackling hum that’s remained persistent throughout. It’s a noise like a string section on helium, or ears ringing after heavy shelling.

Slowly, a third noise completes the triad: a wobbly sound like the strings of a mandolin being slowly detuned. It drops in pitch and frequency until it’s the thud of footsteps. Metal on concrete: A Transformer’s feet.

FADE IN:

**EXT. JAPAN BASE – HANGAR BY THE DOCKS – ALMOST DAWN**

The footsteps are Perceptor’s, as he follows Convoy across the base. At their feet, one or two techs shout unintelligibly to one another, but here is their gist: “Constructicons damaged... Likely hostile... This one’s a mean bastard!”

Lamps on timers die out around them as the first blues of dawn sink in around the horizon.

PERCEPTOR

_What do you mean, coup d’état?_

CONVOY

_A mild comparison. I found them at a convenient time._

PERCEPTOR

_This just proves Prowl’s point: They can’t be trusted!_

CONVOY

_Hightower didn’t go along with it, they nearly beat him to death. But without him to deal with they would’ve easily overpowered me._

PERCEPTOR

_How badly is ‘nearly beaten to death’?_

CONVOY

_Uncertain._

Finally, they reach the Constructicons’ hangar – it looks like it’s fallen down since that last battle. Or did we just never notice it before? Overload remains offlined some ways down the hill, perhaps having rolled since that confrontation. He’s identifiable only as a big lump, like that of junkyard scraps.

PERCEPTOR

_Not very sturdy, was it?_

CONVOY

_No._

Perceptor peels back part of the wall paneling, revealing Hightower curled up, every dent, scratch and tear visible from under the unsightly light apparatus mounted to the red Autobot’s shoulder. Its blue light doesn’t show a square foot that’s not in some way beaten senseless by construction equipment.

Perceptor, much more tactful than Convoy, squats to meet Hightower at eye-level. Even from there, the robot looks like a piece of junk that shouldn’t still be alive. One eyebrow-piece droops, dangling and scratching against Hightower’s Autobot-blue eyes.

PERCEPTOR

_Can you walk?_

A quick nod.

PERCEPTOR

_Then let’s walk._

He helps the Constructicon up as Convoy continues to stand, assessing the situation. Focus on him as Perceptor and Hightower limp out of frame together. It’s a groaning, stumbling painful process, and watching him is painful as we see every joint rotate unevenly, hear every grind of things knocked out of place, watch jagged armor pieces totter and threaten to peel from his frame.

The Peterbilt walks among the two bodies on the floor, casually nudges one. It awakes: Trench.

TRENCH’S POV:

The figure above him is Bad Spark incarnate: a blazing black-and-red fury, stationary but tendrils of ruby-red smoke dripping from his armor. The wheels on his shoulders and legs turn audibly.

BLINK(S): for a moment, the red smoke appears as green, and vice versa.

CONVOY

(with control)

_He might live, he might not. You won’t decide again._

CUT TO: A third-person view of Trench on the left, Convoy standing above him on the right. Trench wants to spit – we can see it in the flare of his eyes – but he hasn’t the energy nor the indignity.

Convoy is directly above him. Still no mercy in his eyes. Our view rotates until we’re laid next to Trench (mirroring the previous POV), staring up at this... this... other-creature! There’s some aura radiating off him, like an alien presence. Evil! Trench knows it is Evil!

CONVOY

_You’re the remains of a unit; if you are brought together, it can only be from the inside._

Rampage is starting to awaken: his groans are painful, like a wounded animal’s, but he will not be put down. Not today, at least.

Convoy walks out of our view; we hear his footsteps well after he’s gone.

HARD CUT TO:

Rampage stumbles to his feet, drunken. His damage is minor, but his pride has taken casualties. Even up the hill, we can hear that Overload is not out of it anymore, either – his groans are not just groans but screams of sorts.

We see Trench’s face: he understands now what he and his brothers have done to one of their own. That, at least, the abomination Convoy was correct about. All the remaining Constructicons are online, but no one says a word – Trench appears to black out again.

DISSOLVE TO:

Black, as Trench (seemingly) loses consciousness, and that battle-to-be has finally been declared a loss.

More sounds of the road - driving. It’s a heavy vehicle, we can tell, although not quite as heavy as some.

We hear a familiar sort of theme begin to play over it: a sound like parents crying over a lost child in the rain, abandoned by the world, hiding among wanton destruction from metal monsters, as their own metal monster has left them forever. The driving turns it into a memory.

SLOW FADE IN:

**EXT. JAPAN CITY RUINS – GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

Convoy weaves his way through debris, marked by his yellow flashlights which obscure parts of him in tar-colored shadows; others are blocked by blinding light. Every once in a while, we see the truck rush through debris, but his path is mostly clear, and quick.

The music continues, capitalizing on the recognizable theme while adding new layers: synths, bass drum, and a trumpet. Slowly, it becomes distorted, retreating from reality into the aether: reverberated, fading, but still right there with us.

CONVOY

(V.O; echoing)

_There is something I need to see. Eighteen hours, at most._

PERCEPTOR

(V.O; echoing; whispering)

_No! – we need you here!_

CONVOY

_No, you don’t._

After a while, the first blue lights of dawn are recognizable; he crosses into the countryside: it appears buildings have been thrown, grass trampled, cars crashed, bodies strewn across fields and roads. It’s a graveyard, and it shall not be disturbed.

In addition to the Monger’s theme, we hear some of the chirps and rumbles of Xxezz’s theme, almost like two places become one.

More driving. (It’s like) the path has been laid out for Convoy.

Eventually, the lights _clik_ off. Convoy continues driving.

He returns to the city. Passes at least one Destronger’s corpse; encounters a construction vehicle on a bridge; weaves under a skyscraper that chose to fall sideways; a ruined hospital; a man(?)made roadblock of old cars (Lamborghini Cosmic Countach included); a restaurant; crumbling brick walls depicting disturbing messages. All of it is bathed in pinkish-orange light of early morning – plus one of two non-sparking lightposts and countless other sparking ones.

Out of the city again.

It’s a junkyard again. Flat. Spaced-out. Ground-up dirt. Occasional bodies. Scorch marks. One or two otherworldly corpses. Several dozens of humans. Large cardboard signs proclaiming the end, marked with mockeries of peace symbols, caricatures of world leaders and at least one swastika.

But he never once stops driving.

In the background, we hear laser fire. Grunts. Heavy breathing. Ripping winds. Clanks and squeals of metal.

Convoy Transforms while driving, smoothly transitioning into a rollerblade-style slide across the ground, skidding to a halt.

The music stops. A slight breeze disturbs things. It’s almost day now.

He looks around. Feels some of the _presence_ to this place. It’s alive, in a way.

He sees the traces of past violence: the torrential winds, the eviscerations, the death. The doomed Destronger’s sacrifice, the Monger’s final act of destruction.

His own salvation.

There’s a noise, indeterminate, but dangerous. He’s quick to catch it, whirs around with the speed and ferocity of the Devastator Winds.

STRIKE.

A figure rushes to meet the ground. We hear something, like an animal crying out: a blur of gold, red and silver.

Convoy examines the Destronger. It’s weak. Malnourished. It couldn’t tear this newcomer to bite-sized bits if it wanted to; in this delirious state, it no longer wants to.

Convoy examines the thing with something between pity and sympathy, eyes narrowing much like they did with the Constructicon, but without the much-needed harshness. The Destronger rolls desperately to its feet, opening its mouth to the sound of a sputtering engine – backfiring.

WIDEN:

The two silhouettes stare at each other for a long moment, the atmosphere dim but still ablaze. They’re some small part of the landscape of some grand painting.

CONVOY

_You’ve scrounged for everything edible within arms’ reach. There’s more out there, yet you’re too weak to retrieve it._

The dog stares at him, pain in its eyes. Its tongue lolls loosely from the left side of its mouth, dead between its jaws. Its tail wags lethargically.

CONVOY

_SCROUNGE. That’s what you’ll be named. You have my pity._

The dog clearly has no idea what the strange truck is talking about. Just stares blankly, curiosity and amusement peeking in around the corners of Scrounge’s being.

CONVOY

_I didn’t know what brought me out here. I still might not. Whatever it is, it’s bigger than any of us. Bigger than you, too._

CLOSE ON: In spite of the faceplate, we can see the shapings of a grim smile at that; it vanishes in a flash. Scrounge must recognize the gesture; he’s showing teeth now.

CONVOY

_Things are happening. This world doesn’t have long, and some of that falls on myself. Those soldiers? Their days are numbered. You won’t live long, either. None of us will, in the end. We’ll all die protecting something bigger than any of us can comprehend. And I still can’t comprehend any of this._

FAVOR ON: Now we see reddish fangs, like the needles of an angler fish, or something even more graphic. It’s a smile, after all!

The Peterbilt kneels in front of his newfound comrade, holds out his left hand, slowly makes his way to the dog’s face. It widens its mouth, showing more teeth, but does no more. “Maybe if I follow the strange man, I’ll get some real food!”

CONVOY

_If you want, you can come back with –_

He doesn’t finish. He can’t.

**INT. DREAMWORLD – BLACK WALLS**

Orange-yellow clouds of unreal flame dance before Convoy’s – our – eyes, like embellished strokes made with flaming brushes.

Screams, somewhere between human and animal. An endless sucking-in noise.

The clouds form shapes: one-dimensional shapes, crude pictures with see-through eye sockets, dancing through violent motions with one another like flipping through pages of some madman’s sketchbook. Yells in various unintelligible languages. Urgent flashes of purple and green light. Red eyes staring back from the blackness, piercing through everything from the farthest corner of the center background, swelling as this atonal music comes to a fermata.

An orchestra – or something like it – hits as the eyes become the two stars at the center of this dream solar system. A cymbal roars. Violins stroke staccato.

Slowly, slurred, distorted words are formed from this cacophony:

VOICES

_Ooooooooooooo..._

_(garbled, slowed beyond human understanding)_

_...ssss._

Scrounge yelps from somewhere far away. The dream is destroyed.

FLASH RETURN TO:

**EXT. JAPAN WASTELAND – MORNING**

Convoy (eyes pure green) stumbles back, tripping over a Countach and landing on his back. He groans. The blues of his optics return.

Scrounge limps up to him (somehow reinvigorated, like the last of some energetic glow lingers), gazes down on his newfound benefactor for a long moment. He’s less threatening the more we look at him.

One last sigh, and the red-and-blue truck gathers his hands beneath him, is suddenly caught staring at the Autobot insignia stamped into his left shoulder. It’s a symbol of that thing large beyond comprehension, is it not? He runs his fingertips over it, drops them to the ground again. Looks at Scrounge.

CONVOY

_I understand now. We must return home: together._

The Destronger needs to take another moment to understand.

CONVOY

_Yes, you too._

He Transforms, revs his engines. Scrounge observes.

He begins driving back, out of frame. Focus on Scrounge, who gazes longingly after a moment, then struggles (much less than he would’ve before) to Transform. His tires – now pristine - struggle to find traction; they do after a moment with some revving of his own engine.

Scrounge moves out of frame, the noises of his engines linger. Hold there on the space where he once stood. There’s something strange about the wind, we can hear it. There’s something even more off about the land, and the sky. Like it’s not all there for us to see – or there’s something there we’re not seeing.

A trumpet plays something improvised over a synth drone, probably a G. The trumpet works its modes, a couple flutter-tongues, tremolo, slow vibrato. It reverberates, like a trumpeter is standing right there in front of us, playing into a wall. The sound bounces around. The wind still howls.

SLOW CROSSFADE:

**EXT. ARIZONA DESERT – DUSK**

They’re still driving. The Destrongers’ head and taillights switch on with incredible synch.

WIDEN: there’s a small city ahead of them, marked by the abundance of lights which appear almost alive. The sky is much like the dawn in Japan we saw not too long ago.

CUT TO: a speed limit sign. (“Fifty-five miles an hour,” my ass.)

CLOSER ANGLE: Skids’ lights come on, then Prowl’s.

The string of cars ride over small bounces in the road, do not once slow down. Occasionally, cars pass them, or they pass other cars. Strangely enough, there’s not much suspicious about this at first, as long as they’re spread out.

But... When you look at it long enough, a trail of muscle cars and vans followed by a black-and-white doesn’t NOT come across suspicious. However, subtlety is not their weapon of choice, nor should it be. The disguises do their trick, however. Whatever’s suspicious about them, these are just normal cars.

Inside Prowl, Duke and his men gaze out, their armor powered off to avoid the tell-tale light show. A guy in the delinquents’ seat – JAXON – looks incredibly bored.

JAXON

_I used to live around here._

FAVOR ON: orange light passes in waves over a Zeta team emblem. It’s a stylized Z, like a lightning bolt, electric white with discernable red edges.

DUKE (O.S)

(seriously)

_Is that so?_

NEW FAVOR ON: Smiley team emblem – a yellow smiley face over the heart on Smiley squadron vests.

ANECDOTES: various cuts from multiple cars (preferably in the same erratic lighting), showing the hive-sense of apprehension they comprehend as one. Even during the Debellatio, none of them had faced actual Decepticons. Those Destrongers had been bad enough.

JAXON (O.S)

_Yeah._

Fade into silence again. The futile attempt to break it is awkward, even for us – the viewers.

RETURN TO: the first car, where Duke, Jaxon and others now sit.

Bump. The passengers lurch as one. Ahead of them is a ramp tunneling underground. More than half the lights lining its interior have lost their life. Within each car, this translates to face and form becoming lost in grey-black shadow. Squeals of wind, tires, engines. Even through the dark, you’d think each of Prowl’s occupants were holding their breath.

They’re ready to fight. They’re just waiting for it. Each of them is reminded of previous missions from a variety of backgrounds: BASE jumping, walls scaled with naked rope in the dead of night, two-mile crawls through muddied waist-high grass. A flash of yellow light against Duke’s eyes reveals he is set almost in stone. Same phenomenon with Jaxon, then the other occupants: TRAKKER, CORD and SATO. For each, the look of a killer is slightly different, but the training remains the same for all of them.

We hear distant shouts of cursing drill sergeants, grunts of frustration, fists meeting faces, boots clambering to attention. Overlapping, a different story told to portray each soldier as who they are today.

The convoy turns upward, thundering out of the tunnel and back into the lights of a civilization that Galvanized Iron is not a part of.

They continue onward down the street, and our perspective almost seems to fall short, continually falling shorter still until they are blurs against a blanket of evening blurs.

CROSS-DISSOLVE:

**EXT. NEVADA DESERT – NIGHT**

Starscream lumbers about, several times gripping at his bad shoulder, slamming his prosthetic back into place. He will not remain there with those disgusting guerillas! Even he has more dignity than that!

STARSCREAM

(muttering)

_My loyalty... is solid! My... Emperor... I will do my duty!_

We hear the pursuers behind him. Not good. He must flee! Time to Transform.

Two sets of red headlights, one yellow dot between them.

He kneels, back flaps opening, sliding. His nosecone springs from his thorax, _almost_ reaches around his head. He yanks his bad arm away from his body, clips it to his left leg. We don’t realize until now just how spindly his fingers are, how gangly his arms, how hopelessly grotesque his whole form is. And now he’s feeling it too. Several grunts of unfiltered frustration. “Fly, alien freak, fly!”

All at once, the metal groans and furious clicks of three Decepticon soldiers initiating a simultaneous Transformation. Roadgrabber throws himself on top of the fallen flyer, screaming/whooping, eyes impossibly wide for the moment-and-a-half we see them before he tumbles into Starscream. An army-green tank joins in, makes itself known as Bludgeon. He’s practically a supervisor as the car does most of the work.

Shockwave takes his bipedal shape, practically standing up out of some abstract ground vehicle form. His face grows out of his torso, narrowing into a shape like a pyramid, yellow orb riding some invisible rail up from his chest to the center of his face. Antennae sprout like ears. He stands back behind Bludgeon, listening to Roadgrabber grunt triumphantly.

CLOSE ON: Starscream’s head hits the ground, a fist-sized round rock nicking itself against his remaining incisor. The chip travels through his body like a shudder.

PAN UP: Roadgrabber’s foot – clawed – roots itself in the small of the jet’s back. The tire on his right leg – asymmetrical frame – rotates just slow enough that we can see it turns clockwise. The grille of his car form becomes a mocking six-pack, his (illegal) red headlights his perfectly-drooped nipples. His shoulders are thrown back in victory. His mouth is set with fangs. His right eye twitches, fizzles out, blinks to life again.

ROADGRABBER

(laughing)

_Look, caught us a - _(static)_ – a winged thing!_

Digs his foot into his captive’s back.

SHOCKWAVE

_Not to be injured severely._

BLUDGEON

_But he’ll get the message._

The car decides to release his foot from Starscream’s back. As soon as he is free, he makes one last uninhibited attempt to run, and is casually blocked by Bludgeon. His larger form resembles his smaller self closely, save a couple silvery details, and some places where his paint appears charred like black scar tissue. He holds a long baton in the former Commander’s general direction.

BLUDGEON

(cont’d)

_Back home, puppy._

He is a prisoner among his own ranks. No place to go but with them. He stumbles to his feet. Doesn’t pick up his arm. Shockwave does that, instead. Starscream flashes a smirk, and then it’s gone.

ROADBLOCK

_Hey, I think I’m remembering you now! Back on Xxes-some-or-other, you led a squadron of flyers into a cave. Got shot up by some drunk Autobots, you came out with your tails up and said you were the only survivor. Ain’t that a story!_

The subject of said story remains silent. He does not speak to animals.

He’s surrounded on three sides. All of them walk back on two feet. Shockwave has the prosthetic slung under his right arm. The more we look at his eye, the less it looks like an eye.

It’s more like a mirror, reflecting something that does not exist: an unthinking mind. Behind this façade, the purple Decepticon plans. His head flicks towards Starscream, making comparisons. Forward to Bludgeon and Roadgrabber. Assessment of enemies.

He will leave soon, to find his new form. It will be a following of given orders, nothing wrong with that.

CUT TO: Bludgeon’s skeletal body trains his floodlight on the returning team.

The four aliens’ feet kick up dirt. They are now within range of Area 51’s (Bludgeon’s, specifically) heavy lights, which block out their own markers. Shockwave’s plotting complexion is lost to the yellow wall.

CROSS-DISSOLVE:

**EXT. NEW MEXICO DESERT – DEAD OF NIGHT**

The Destrongers stop. Found something. Skids and Prowl break the line, fan out. Their dogs do the same.

WIDEN: Ahead is a sharp cliff face, stretching up at least a hundred feet. Somewhere behind and to the West of the group is that unnamed city they’d passed through. To the South is a foothill, connecting upward to a larger body of jagged rock.

Colton looks up at that rock: it’s alien, some mystery of odd erosion forming the body of a hunched-over creature with jagged stalactite fingers. Duke takes his place beside his fellow troop leader.

DUKE

_Trail stops here, ‘parently. Skids and Prowl are both confused crazy._

As if on cue, both Skids and Prowl Transform. In front of them, Cujo Transforms first: it’s like a turtle growing from inside his shell, contorting, turning inside-out. Fangster goes next, elongating into a sort of worm-creature, compressing and growing limbs. Welt’s is the most amusing, with the whole car flipping over, throwing out a leg from his axle and rolling around like a maddened snake, eventually pushing himself to his paws. All three growl at one another with red eyes.

PROWL

(not screaming, but booming)

_Suits on! Now!_

There’s a shrill tone as a dozen Henshin cyber-suits activate at once. It’s a veritable Christmas tree of yellow, red and blue lights. They adjust accordingly: too much light, any way you look at it. Each’s suit lights dim tremendously, internal reactors stabilizing at a moderate output. The rifles clipped to their vests retain a ruby-red streak running along the side.

COLTON

(lowly, to Duke)

_Game time._

Duke remains silent, acknowledging the comment internally. He accordions HAZMAT-style headgear from the back of his collar, fastens it to the front of his vest. Colton does the same.

They’re a swarm of dim, fuzzy lights, completely unrecognizable as individuals. Some post-prod effects would emphasize this murky blob against the sharpness of the cliffs and the pinpricks of white-hot light.

Silence. There’s still the little wind between the rocks, faint, almost as if being heard through a glass box filled with water.

Still.

Hold.

...

Hold.

...

Keep holding, that’s right.

Start counting. We can hear footsteps on loose dirt, little squeals, subtle _winks_ among the ruby cloud.

...

Growling. The Destrongers haven’t learned to keep quiet.

It isn’t a Destronger. Whatever it is, it hasn’t been on this world for long.

Gunfire. Muffled yells. The image clears again, but we cut rapidly between these moments and perspectives.

ANECDOTE: two soldiers’ Henshin suits return to full power as they go on the fritz. Sparks fly in all directions as their countergravity units propel them dozens of feet upward and sideways. Their machine guns fire randomly – towards one another.

ANECDOTE: A Destronger – possibly Cujo – is thrown against the rock face with the force of a tornado. He whimpers. He can see the jagged, broken shapes of deformed ribs. He rolls back to the ground, tries to get up, but his legs are like cheap plastic and paper mâché, and they collapse downward without a single indicative noise.

ANECDOTE: Smiley group are spread out below us, vaguely identifiable. (FAVOR ON: the smiley face insignia on the front of one’s vest, stoic in its joviality). The light’s inconsistent, but we see enough to know they don’t know which way to point their guns.

ANECDOTE: A Zeta teammember is suddenly hit by some sort of intense beam – like lightning – and baked like a burger before he hits the ground. The impact illuminates his emblem, which is, again, a little ironic. Through some bizarre quirk of his air supply, his HAZMAT-style headgear pops like a balloon as he lands headfirst. His last breath escapes as a swarm through every newfound hole in his bloodied head.

BLINK: a Destronger opening its mouth farther than any creature should be able to. Its growl sounds like a million pounds of burning coals.

BLINK: Prowl’s gun fires off into the blackness – in the wrong direction. He tries to turn on his chest-mounted headlights, but we hear something shattering, then the detuned whine of a police siren.

Finally, it seems there could be hope!

O.S: a roar. It’s a glorious sound, ainnit?

Grimlock has arrived.

All at once, it seems Galvanized Iron has the time to coordinate. We hear shouting of orders. Probably Duke and Colton calling out to their teams. More machine gunfire – rhythmic, coordinated, flashing like a synchronized light show.

Still, we never once see the enemy.

Grimlock Transforms wildly, slightly resembling the late Monger in his intensity and destructive energy. Still, he’s not close. Through the fuzzied blackness we hear growls, groans, punches flying, very large objects slamming into the ground, into the rocks, into everything.

One soldier finds his way slammed against a rock next to another. The second’s rifle is shattered. In the moment, the first hands him his own and pulls out his next weapon: flare pistols. He shoots whatever he can, giving guidelights to this newfound hellworld of impossible shadows. The gunfire never stops, the yells never stop, the blows never stop.

One of the flares nicks something, which cries out like a wounded dog.

Fangster is thrown fifty feet upward, slams against the cliff face, falls a maimed heap in front of Duke.

ANECDOTE: Skids is visible now in the pinkish-ruby light of a flare gun. His fists have reformed into heavy knuckles, and he lashes out with some cold fury. He hits something.

Grimlock picks something up, swings it, slams it into something else. Then he Transforms, and his dinosaur head forms around something with a delicious CRUNCHK. But it’s short-lived, as Something Else suddenly leaps on him, shifts his weight and sends him sprawling. A chunk tears away from his belly. The Gojira-thing yelps massively, lashes out like a deer full of buckshot.

Colton runs through it all, marked by the glow of his Henshin suit. We can tell it’s him because he we hear his voice, his breathing, his grunts of frustration. He holds something like a bayonet. Something incomplete passes over him, and he stabs upward through it, tearing a gash in its torso.

POV: the interior of a Smiley trooper’s helmet. The world outside is masked by a plastic visor, which displays other teammembers as points of light. Problem is, your entire field of vision is comprised of points of light. Your entire range of hearing is filled by gunfire and otherworldly grunts. The whole world seems to rumble. To burn.

CONTINUE POV: something is hurled towards your mask, pierces the top of your visor, sprays the entirety of our view with thick, wet blood. This is when we realize our POV character has just died a horrible death. End POV.

Grimlock just keeps hurling himself at whatever moves, and that’s a lot. Skids and Prowl are much more stable, with the remains of Galvanized Iron gathering around them. They’re an impenetrable circle.

Until they’re not. And then they’re just a bunch of idiots with guns and lights again.

We see Grimlock again. Hear several sickening _snaps_.

We see a couple more flares. The number of gunshots per minute goes down. We hear the unmasked shuffles of feet now, without all this violent and incessant noise to muffle them.

We go black for a moment. A moment is all it takes. Then we exist again.

The enemy is gone. Most of the heroes are, too.

Silent.

Still.

Prowl and Skids have both been knocked over, offlined. At least one Destronger lays in pieces. Several soldiers’ brains have been smashed against rock. Chunks of metal and flesh lay everywhere. Several flares fizzle and die out quickly. Fire-red sparks illuminate nothing except themselves, like glowsticks.

But something is still standing. Through the cloud of gunsmoke we see a single blue band. Below it, the plus-sign shape of a central faceplate, and the open-mouthed tusks on either side. Both sides are missing tusks. It’s painful to look at. Too much like watching your own teeth be pulled.

His shoulders are uneven. A chunk of his chest has been torn open. He’s like a hunchback. He doesn’t even breathe, and we can hear labored gasping. The band that is his optic blinks several times, struggling to maintain constant function. He’s delirious.

He takes one step. Two. Falls over. Something comes loose on impact. Possibly one of his joints, as if he were a dollar-store knockoff of himself, made of flimsy plastic and ill-fitting ball-and-sockets.

He struggles to get up. It appears the “bones” in his right arm have broken off, collapsed into a diamond-shape. Putting his weight on them doesn’t help matters. He crawls on his knees for several paces. Tries to Transform. He can’t.

Finally, he manages a half-Transformation, gathering one of his T-rex legs under him and muscling to his feet. To Transform out of this shape would be to invite collapse again. There’s an unshapely crater where a mass of servomotors used to be.

He just... walks. Out of the canyon. Delirious. Perhaps to civilization, perhaps to death, perhaps to nowhere. But Grimlock is walking away from the massacre.

FADE TO:

Black.

A drone begins playing, probably a D.

A piano strikes a dissonant chord, and the music fades out again, apologizing for its intrusion.

End chapter.


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galvanized Iron have been whooped. The Decepticons are winning. Convoy reveals his identity to the Autobots. And MORE!

Black. A little gust soon becomes a howling, chilling wind. A suite begins playing, snare drum droning time as synthesizers soliloquy over it.

Silent.

DISSOLVE IN:

**EXT. NEW MEXICO DESERT - MORNING**

CLOSE UP: Colton’s face. His eyes are closed; he looks thoroughly unconscious, but none of the resting shows. He sleeps like a man dead.

Silent.

His eyes open - blue. Blink several times. A gloved hand comes up, wipes sweat away with a hand gloved in grime. And some blood.

We hear his breath for the first time – ragged, afraid, slowly fading into a soldier’s stoicism.

Colton gets to his feet, groaning in pain and exertion. His only remaining weapon is a sort of baton-or-other melee-thing strapped around his vest. Most of the light modules on his cyborg suit have been shattered. They’re caked with brown dust and something... more colorful. Leaking fluids, organic and otherwise. His hood must’ve been torn off some time ago, he can’t remember.

He looks around: he’s still at the canyon. Still in the nightmare.

FLASH: Trees. Jungle. Animals. Screaming. Fire. With them, the drone of something almost musical, can’t quite decide on any one pitch.

He examines the bodies around them, kneels at each one, feels for a pulse, then for dog tags. After that, for weapons and other operational parts.

We don’t see any other living beings around him – not at first, at least.

He starts walking, not sure where. Each step is lumbering, takes effort, delirious.

A scorpion passes by his feet. The soldier looks down at the arachnid, it seems to look up at him. He raises his boot to kill the thing.

POV: we see what the scorpion sees: a looming giant, burning with the heat of life. Its upraised hoof has spikes larger than your body. It blocks out some of the sun, trapping you in a sort of cold. It’s a predator, and you cannot move before that thing comes down and pancakes you.

Colton seriously considers it, then... Drops his foot. After a moment, the scorpion passes on its merry little way. Colton has some version of a chuckle.

He keeps walking. More walking.

Eventually, he reaches some kind of old beaten path. Could’ve been used by the old settlers.

A car approaches from his... right; He hears it before he sees it. And then he sees it: blue, larger than most cars.

COLTON

_“Elaine Colton in Aisle Seven, your son is at the counter.”_

(Beat)

_Course, I hadn’t known it was Aisle Seven - too busy crying in Aisle Six._

Slowly, Colton’s guess at the van proves true: it’s Skids, with his alien military armor and orange-red stripe along the side. His engine doesn’t sound too normal; too much like a living creature’s breathing. Too ragged.

As he pulls up, it also becomes obvious that Skids still bears his own marks of the previous night’s battle: dents, scratches, one long peel of paint running at an angle to his side-stripe, at least one door window looking like a kid high on crack threw rocks at it. He knew what that looked like, sure ‘nough.

Slowly, Skids... _skids_ to a halt directly in front of him, sluggish. The driver’s-side window rolls down. The seat is empty. Inside, we see the radio beeping: a steady red light, which takes on new shape once it begins talking. In the passenger side, Colton sees a soldier still wearing his hood, with only the Smiley insignia as an identifying mark.

COLTON

_What happened?_

SKIDS

_Too much. Good thing we caught you. Get in._

Colton opens the door. Gets in. The inside is thoroughly trashed, from the curious rips in seats to pieces of fabric and metal dangling from the headliner. No surface is left unmarked. Any part of this van could fall apart at a moment’s notice. He goes for the front mirror, tries adjusting it to get a good view of everyone. It breaks off in his hands – he gingerly tosses it down by his feet.

He turns around, looks back. Seven faces – six seated, one crouching between the middle two seats – gaze back at him. Among them are Trakker and Sato.

COLTON

_Is this it?_

The figure next to him speaks:

DUKE

_Far as we know. Long night._

COLTON

_Apparently. We didn’t get them, did we?_

Duke shakes his head: not even close.

SKIDS

_We know there are others out there, it’s just a matter of finding them. Prowl and at least one Destronger._

COLTON

_Grimlock?_

DUKE

(With angry cynicism)

_Jack. Squat. Nada. Not a sign since the shitstorm began._

Colton sighs and leans back in the driver’s seat.

COLTON

_We’re still on, then. One dog’s all we need?_

SKIDS

_Yup._

Crouched between the two middle seats, a face pops up.

SATO

_Y’know, there are more of us in –_

DUKE

_Shut up._

COLTON

_He might have a –_

But the soldier’s not having it.

DUKE

_You, too._

TRAKKER

_What is this, the quiet game?_

Apparently. No one says another word.

They drive a good distance. In the background, we hear a duet between a synthesizer and a bass guitar; amplifier feedback hums out a familiar noise. The two instruments converse, slowly at first, without tempo, slowly matching their rhythms to the blue Honda’s wheels.

Up ahead, a once-white police car and battered muscle car (with its exposed engine bent at a nasty 45-degree angle) throw dirt in a funnel behind them.

The bass guitar strikes a chord, ending the little piece. The three cars park themselves in the dirt. The sun beats down on all of them. The remaining Galvanized Iron exit the van, slowly, as if Skids will collapse under their weight. They don’t even close his doors.

Prowl Transforms – clearly some effort, and a lot of pain. Parts grind. Paint peels in thin, squealing strips. His engine makes a noise no engine should ever make.

PROWL

_That’s it?_

Skids nods. The Destronger remains immobile.

PROWL

_You’re a disgrace, all of you. Real Decepticons are unlike anything you’ve ever faced before._

No human soldier wants or needs to hear this. Skids doesn’t, either. But all of them have dealt with _this_ before.

Prowl’s pacing now. His tires grind weakly against his limbs. Any more torque in them and they’ll tear off his frame.

PROWL

_Our remaining Destronger has a trail. We follow him, we stage an ambush, we take them out one by one._

Then someone does the unthinkable!

COLTON

_With all due respect, how did that work last night?_

He turns. Scowling.

PROWL

_What?_

COLTON

_What **was** our plan last night? They came to us, they kicked our asses to the Sun. What were we trying to do?_

Prowl’s eyes narrow – then his whole face. He scowls, walks towards the G.I, leans over him.

PROWL

(whispering, gravelly, modulating mechanically)

_You can do better?_

Colton doesn’t answer. It was an outburst. But its effects are already there.

SKIDS

_We should’ve split up, spread ourselves over –_

PROWL

(angrily)

_Really, now!?_

TRAKKER

_We could’ve –_

PROWL

_No. There was no other way._

The Destronger Transforms – it’s Welt. Skids moves to examine him. Prowl glares over his shoulder at the Honda.

Skids kneels as the car Transforms. It can barely complete the action before rolling over, spilling hand-sized chunks of glass and metal to the dirt. Skids carefully holds twisted hands to the dog’s head and belly.

SKIDS

_He’s got a damaged everything; I’d say he’s done for. We head back to Japan._

PROWL

_No can do. Not until all are dead._

DUKE

_That being them, or us?_

Silence. No one says a word after that.

CROSSFADE:

**EXT. JAPAN BASE - DUSK**

Convoy stands, facing the sea. Obviously, he is deliberating on everything he knows has happened. It’s quiet – deathly quiet, not busy at all, but dead.

He must go back. No matter how little he wants to, he must head back.

We follow him through the base – it’s mostly empty now. Save Scrounge, who we see before we hear. He’s trotting on the pavement, then (poorly) emulating the natural sounds of a dog panting. Ah, the Transformer knack for emulation.

He settles by Convoy’s feet, red optics wide. Clearly, he’s in better shape now. His dents have been pounded out, the golden paint has an unmistakable hue in the darkness, his tongue rolls with newfound confidence.

The old Autobot’s optics drift down to the Destronger and he stops, lowers his hand to the dog’s head. Apparently, between humans and Earth dogs it is a gesture of affection. Metal against metal as the truck pats the dog several times, his eyes narrowing in a way suggestive of hidden calculating. Scrounge doesn’t mind; he seems more affection-starved than anything.

CONVOY

_I’m afraid I have to go again. Don’t worry, Perceptor and the others will know what to do._

The dog nods, not really understanding.

Convoy gives one final ruffle of metal, then walks away. He’s going to tell Perceptor and the others what to do.

**INT. HANGAR – SHADOWY**

Perceptor’s going back over a few of the orbital diagrams, silently making some gestures and mouthing dictations to human techs. English-language streams of text and code flash in green-blue across the wall, turn red and freeze when the final computation reaches an outcome.

Convoy’s shadow is briefly thrown by an outside light across the floor to the Autobot scientist’s feet, then disintegrates as he pulls the door shut behind him. He turns, and some of the techs turn with him.

PERCEPTOR

(Quietly, to the techs)

_I think we’re done here for now, thank you._

They oblige, leaving the two Autobots to their own devices. They approach one another – from our view, the red projection of a DECEPTICON INSIGNIA appears between them like a physical barrier.

CONVOY

_I have to go. Prep the Constructicons and whatever humans and Destrongers you can gather._

PERCEPTOR

_What for?_

Convoy points to the projected insignia. Perceptor’s optics follow his hand, nod in the projection’s direction.

PERCEPTOR

_Makes sense. Still, I can’t possibly understand what you’re going to do that is so important._

CONVOY

(So ambiguous as to be without meaning)

_Neither can I._

He walks away without even another word. Perceptor returns to his outcome projector one more time, taking time to type in some new variables – illustrated on the readout as generic Transformer silhouettes.

FOCUS ON: a human torso-sized button marked “RUN”. Perceptor gently presses it.

On the screen, the code flashes by faster and faster. His careful optics miss none of it. Several seconds pass, and the streams of code are frozen in place one by one. Not long after stopping, some of them disappear.

Leaving only one.

FADE TO:

Black.

S.O.: “INDETERMINATE.”

CROSSFADE:

**EXT. NEVADA DESERT – MORNING**

A minivan cruises along the empty highway. It’s not Skids, not by a long, long shot.

Four PASSENGERS: MOTHER, FATHER, SON and DAUGHTER. We see them through the half-caked windshield. None of them look like they have any clue where they’re going, much less how they’ve been led to here. They’re all more or less miserable.

In the distance: a limping silhouette – blocking out the Sun. Some of the rock formations out here are just plain bizarre, that much has always been obvious to this traveling family. The only one that even bats an eye to it is the young son, freckled and wearing a saturated red-white-and-blue baseball cap. He leans against the passenger-side back window, open-mouthed.

The glare of the Sun passes through the thing’s natural holes and crevices. They seem to be constant upon several seconds of examination.

  * THEN! –

The Sun seems to blink behind it. The boy gasps.

SON

_Look! That big body over there!_

He must not have been the only one who saw it.

FATHER

(Midwestern hick drawl)

_Now, what the **hell**!?_

And it’s approaching them.

Unable to decide what else to do, the father stops the van dead on the road. Their little emissary cloud of orange-brown dust carries on a few yards before falling to the ground. Angrily, he opens his door and swaggers a bit so that he stands between the giant and his family. With the pudginess of middle age he points a stubby accusatory finger to the beast.

The Sun continues to blink in and out of the limping mountain in the distance. And the mountain seems to grow only further...

Hold on this “mountain” as it approaches them. It’s bent, misshapen, hardly mistakable for anything humanoid – that is, if the size didn’t give it away.

Gradually, colors become clear, too: military silver-grey, bright red, deep blue...

A purple right arm, lined with yellow caution stripes like crime scene tape. Whatever this thing is, its torso is shaped like a half-eaten Dorito. The son looks down at his stomach and pats it several times.

This monster only continues to approach.

FATHER

_Don’t come any closer, you hear? I know what you are! You’re a Third Countach, I know it! And I ain’t ‘fraid, you hear me!?_

MYSTERIOUS GIANT

(Tired, still lumbering)

_You... You know nothing._

He stops. Holds his mismatched arm to his chest: a broken lump of orange glass almost shaped like a human’s scar. It’s even black around the edges, like a scab.

He comes within distance for the father to see the Decepticon’s face. Two ugly teeth, narrow red eyes, [Nazi stahlhelm-] mushroom-shaped head... clawed fingers.

He stops there. He has double-jointed clawed feet. As if the true abrasiveness of the comment needed several moments to reach, he reels his head back. His eyes widen. His mismatched arm goes to his chest in a gesture of insult, of wounded pride.

Then he drops the arm. Slowly, he props his legs into a folded position under him. His shoulders level out – best as they can, at least, with his prosthetic sagging at the shoulder a good two feet.

MYSTERIOUS GIANT

_I’ve... been injured. I was wondering if you’d be willing to help._

The father in all his certainty, has not considered this – this creature could be hurt! He reels back a little bit in slight surprise.

Now the mother gets out of the car. The son and daughter swiftly follow. All at once they gather around like he’s an old bard telling war stories of his youth.

MYSTERIOUS GIANT

_Or are you as badly lost as I am?_

Before him, they look like lost animals. Through Transformer eyes, the world is a spectral mess. Four heat signatures stand out.

Starscream’s optics flare.

The son and daughter both look up at him in dreaded fascination. What gullible creatures they were, humans.

Four sets of human eyes meet the Transformer’s two optics. He’s somehow gazing at all of them at once. Various little flaps flip randomly across his body, suggestive of his incredible thinking made physical.

The boy wants to ask a question. The daughter shares the freckles and reddish-blonde hair, and is probably thinking much the same thing. The adults are harder: he can’t come close to what those primitive little brains have in them.

Finally, his impatience gets the best of him.

Without warning –

  * AN ARM COMES UP! –

The Sun hides half of the car in a wall of white glare. We don’t hear any of what follows until the Decepticon Seeker is finally alone. We turn back to face him.

Aside from a bit of viscera quickly blown over by the dust, there’s nothing to suggest any human had ever even seen the spot where the family had been.

That leaves the van. It would be degrading, yes, but he would have no problem being degraded if he was smart and achieved his ultimate goal!

STARSCREAM

_Emperor, I do this for you..._

Without another moment’s hesitation, he returns to his natural state: his True Mode. Silvery liquid crawls across the ground. The prosthetic, something of a Transformer in its own right, simply folds up into a more carriable state.

PULL AWAY: The Decepticon is now a mercurial pool about the same size of the van. We again shift perspective for the dignity of our fellow spectators to –

An ALBINO RABBIT. Curiously, it approaches a small patch of weeds the size of a human head. Sniffs at them. Slowly, it meets our gaze, almost self-aware without ever knowing it.

It’s looking over us – to the shape of TWO vans on the beaten dirt road. One of them is a dirty brass color, the other is silver with the streaks of red and blue. Automated, the purple-yellow hunk of twisted Earth metal slides into the back hatch of one of the vans.

Now it’s our turn to look over the rabbit’s shoulder at Starscream as he drives off down the road.

CROSSFADE:

**EXT. GHOST TOWN – LATE MORNING**

Shockwave moves without fear through the streets. Around him on all sides up to his thighs in abandoned buildings, not even worth the time to be torn down.

His steps boom casually against the pavement. Seeing a lamp as he passes, he outstretches his arm and tips it over. Antennae rotate slightly on his head as it hits the ground, glass bursting and scattering.

A couple graffiti artists have taken to providing their inputs on various political scandals – past, present and future – across a brick wall on his right. A single yellow orb meets them, does not so much as flicker.

“FUCK THE FUCKING ESTABLISHMENT”

“AMERICANS GO HOME”

“TSCHERNOBYL TOO: ELECTRIC BUGALOO”

He must find something, some way to externalize himself to the greater Earth.

Then he sees his answer:

S.O.: “[Faded town name] PUBLIC LIBRARY”

He walks over to it. Places his right hand against the roof. With his other hand, he carves out his own entryway.

His left hand is not a hand, but a probe – it absorbs each line of text left in the building as if breathing air.

In his head, text flies across his vision. Illustrations, too. Through his eyes, we see the inside of the library, too. Its shelves are disheveled, arranged with not a hint of rhyme or reason.

Two books in particular grab Shockwave’s attention:

One is a military vehicles catalogue of some kind, detailing in specific tanks and ground vehicles from WWII onward. They include some images of D-Day: amphibious tanks, brief mentions of submarines including a diagram from the first sub to modern military midgetships.

The other is a Greek mythology storybook. On one page, much to Shockwave’s curiosity, is a GIGANTIC ARMORED CYCLOPS. It wields some unsightly two-handed hammer, spiked, misshapen yet perfectly functional.

Just as Starscream has already done, he begins his next Transformation, returning to his True Mode. His body liquefies, reshapes itself to meet these new specifications on the pavement.

Slowly, it crawls into a strange new shape: first a simple brick of blue-purple metal, then... black strips – treads. A sphere emerges like an oversized mole; a barrel shoots from the mole.

Gradually, the thing forms into a TANK.

P.O.V.: DOWN SHOCKWAVE’S BARREL. Dust and blown-over dirt have accumulated in the street. Before him, we see the heavy crisscross of ANIMAL TRACKS – to him, this is just a sign of human abandonment. But to us, it is a symbol of Transformation.

CUT: the tank slowly rolls away, gathering speed as its engine has the chance to fire itself up. From behind, we see an oddity: two submarine’s arms, folded up, pincers grabbing like a baby slowly developing muscle memory.

CROSSFADE:

**EXT. ARROYO – EARLY NIGHT**

Galvanized Iron has mobilized again, but they move slowly. As the remaining Destronger, Welt has nothing like the speed we’ve seen not even a day ago. It’s like he’s treading on ice.

Without warning, he passes a brown-shriveled bush and stops. His headlights slowly die out. Galvanized Iron begin filing out, slamming doors behind them and letting the two Autobots Transform.

We hear it before they do: the whine of another world, a noise like a thousand screams reverberating through a space the size of a soup can.

Prowl, obviously stinging with pain and anger, Transforms. His fist plants itself in the ground.

PROWL

_Why. Did. He. Stop?_

Skids’ turn to Transform.

We see Duke and Colton moving to stand next to one another. Despite the light source seeing to emanate from nowhere, their bodies are illuminated in something like a yellow-green flame.

SKIDS

(Growing impatient)

_He’s found something. If we were Mongers or Destrongers, we’d sense it too._

PROWL

_I don’t see Decepticons anywhere, do you? Tell that mutt to get moving or we leave him here to roll over and sleep till the Sun comes up!_

The sourceless alien light around the humans – around all of them – intensifies even as the two Autobots argue.

SKIDS

_He’s tired, he’s injured; hell, we all are. We can finish this, but not without rethinking our efforts._

PROWL

_We regroup when I say so._

(To the Destronger)

_You hear me, you stupid dog?_

He raises his leg as if to kick the sagging car. No one really thinks he’ll do it. His door wings hang low on his back. He’s just as green as the rest of them.

SKIDS

(Starting to raise his voice)

_Prowl, stop. We’re not thinking straight._

PROWL

_We’re not going to think at - !_

A gust of wind silences them – not normal wind, obviously. The screams-in-a-can have swelled from nowhere. For a moment, everyone’s vision is overpowered by entirely lime-and-white. We hear a few grunts and screams - pain and confusion as some are knocked over and others are bewildered.

CONVOY stands somewhere in the distance. He’s approaching them, unreal, like a hallucination.

Colton doesn’t seem too fazed by it. He’s the only one not wide-eyed with shock or with a weapon drawn. Even Duke, who raises a rifle, flashlight reflecting off the Autobot’s chest windows. His eyes, his shoulder lights: those are what the green light had come from.

Welt Transforms, most likely as an involuntary fight-or-flight reflex. Both Prowl and Skids draw projectile weapons mounted to their wrists.

Convoy does not react in the slightest to this, stopping of his own accord with two trucks’ space between himself and the two Autobots.

CONVOY

_That is enough._

Prowl chortles cynically, with accusation.

PROWL

_Well! Look who we have here! Convoy, across an ocean without transport, against my orders._

CONVOY

(Slowly, firmly)

_Those were not your orders to give._

PROWL

_Says you? You’re the waste of Angolmois who got our Monger killed._

Silence for a moment.

CONVOY

_And you’re the one leading men that are not your own to the slaughter. You know how it will end._

All at once, everyone’s moved. The humans stand around another overgrown bush, Skids and Welt somewhere around them. Prowl and Convoy face one another – the implication between them is clear.

They will battle.

Prowl hurls himself first; Convoy is not just ready, knows exactly where to go. He grabs Prowl’s outstretched arm in both hands, flips the Autobot over his shoulder. He slams to the dirt in a nasty heap, is quickly on his feet again. Convoy places his next kick well, and Prowl is now lying on his back.

He does not think, only strains to Transform, tries to ram Convoy head-on. Not wanting to prolong this any longer, Convoy sidesteps with a speed none of the spectators have ever seen before. He lands a quick elbow into the police car as it passes, setting off the vehicle’s burglary alarm and busting windows. He Transforms midair, landing on one of his doorwings and bending it into a boomerang shape.

Prowl groans awful humanlike, does not get up again. From the ground he shoots daggers with his eyes at the asserting Prime.

CONVOY

(To everyone)

_I am not Convoy, not anymore. I am **OPTIMUS PRIME, BEARER OF THE AUTOBOT MATRIX... AND YOUR COMMANDER.**_

At this, Prowl finally decides to shut the hell up. Skids is slightly dumbfounded but quickly recovers. Duke’ll need a little longer yet. And Colton, he’s our mirror. The shock comes first, then understanding.

FLASHBACK ANECDOTE: the glowing eyes at the war room.

FLASHBACK ANECDOTE: taking down three Constructicons.

(MUFFLED) FLASHBACK ANECDOTE: standing with Grimlock - !

The Prime must take charge of this group, as he has been commanded. The aura around him is undeniable.

OPTIMUS PRIME

_We all know what must happen: Your trail will lead back to the Decepticons’ base. Infiltrate it, take them out... From the Inside._

With that, the light leaves them. They’re in the dead of night now. A few animals call out from their hiding spots somewhere in the rocks.

Silence.

No one moves.

No one breathes.

SKIDS

(Nervously)

_You heard the man. Welt, follow._

Now the dog is willing. He seems to have regained some strength as well.

SKIDS

_Good boy._

Welt’s brights come on at that. He drives away.

SKIDS

(cont’d; to everyone)

_Well? Let’s go._

He Transforms. Soldiers load into him. Next to him on the ground, Prowl begrudgingly Transforms, as well. Colton enters his passenger side and shuts the door.

Headlights come on as the convoy – ironic term now – resumes their hunt for the Decepticons...

**EXT. INSIGNIA – JAPAN – NIGHT**

The aura around Optimus begins to subside; he emits a human sigh. Nothing about what he’s done has been easy.

He looks to the sky – the stars and moon are brighter than he’s ever seen them before.

JET ENGINES.

METAL MEETING GROUND.

He doesn’t have long. Coming alone has proved to be the wisest course of action. He has nothing left to do but wait.

Wait he does.

The Insignia is exactly as he saw it the first time. Charred black, half-blown over by the passing of time.

He feels the echoes of this place as senses. Voices of the dead, gnashing of teeth, crying. Flaring alarm lights. There might even be one of those earbreakers out there right now, going and going and going, trying to warn anyone left of impending danger! danger! danger!

Clanking metal of Transformation. Footsteps. We can’t see the visitor, but we hear the steps.

CONVOY / OPTIMUS

_So you are our enemy?_

THUNDERWING

(unseen, O.S.)

_Yes. As you are ours._

The Decepticon moves to stand next to the Autobot, gazing across the Ninth Wonder of the World. A wind tries and fails to disturb the last of the ash.

CONVOY

_We are the last?_

THUNDERWING

(matter-of-fact, nodding in no one’s direction)

_Yes, you are the last. And soon, the Autobots will be no more._

CONVOY

(countering)

_Soon, nothing will be anymore._

THUNDERWING

_Not soon enough. What are you going by now?_

CONVOY / OPTIMUS

_Optimus Prime._ (Recognizing the being however Transformers recognize their own)_ In Xxezsi, I was Oszios, meaning almost the same thing._

THUNDERWING

_How did you elude me then?_

CONVOY

(dryly)

_The power within._

They simply stand there for several moments, like two scholars looking over a work of art. Wheels turn, engines whisper, wingflaps adjust.

THUNDERWING

_When shall we begin?_

CONVOY

_Whenever you are ready._

Thunderwing takes this in, decides the time to act will be soon, but not immediately.

It is painfully obvious that the Peterbilt is not armed – not with weapons, anyway.

Then...

POUNCE.

Thunderwing leaps at the Prime, who quickly attempts to step back and out of the way, is knocked to the ground when he can’t move fast enough. The two wrestle on the ground, rolling several times before Optimus rolls his way out, Transforms, makes it several feet when Thunderwing claws into his roof, stopping him dead in his tracks.

Optimus drops the half-escape and Transforms again, managing to swing himself around Thunderwing’s neck and pull both back to the ground.

Now it’s Thunderwing’s turn to Transform, yanking Optimus halfway into the air before he lets himself fall. Thunderwing takes several more seconds, stalling his engines and rocketing down, Transforming moments before making ground contact less than five yards from a slightly dazed Optimus.

With clawed hands he walks towards the Autobot and grabs him by the head with both hands. Optimus’ arms come up but Thunderwing lets one arm go... and swings it into his opponent’s chest. Glass shatters, metal crunches, engines momentarily flare up out of reflex.

Thunderwing hits him again, calmly, calculated.

And again.

Optimus manages to get a fist by Thunderwing’s head, but no closer than that. Now he remembers legs are weapons, too!

Thunderwing, obviously, is ready for that. He blocks a leg with a leg, shifting his weight and brings forth a free arm to BASH Optimus in the head.

Again.

And again.

Again. A brief flare of engines, a spurt from his shoulder smokestacks, and the Autobot goes limp. His optics slowly drop to empty black.

But no, he’s not dead. Just docile enough to be carried back.

Thunderwing will finally have his old quarry. We see something like a smirk _threaten_ to overtake his face for a moment. Then it’s gone, like a Spark snuffed.

Thunderwing’s towering size over the Autobot truck is only truly realized when he slings the body over his shoulder.

Still. Our view does not move, Thunderwing only walks off into the darkness, slowly disappearing. Hold there for a couple moments after he has completely disappeared, and we hear the faint roar of triumphant engines.

CROSSFADE:

**EXT. JAPAN BASE – NIGHT**

Activity has resumed. Floodlights shine a harsh white-blue light on everything, throwing everything else in blackness.

Perceptor directs a few techs in moving equipment – all of it must go. He has his own shoulder-mounted floodlights, as well. He holds his arm up, pointing for equipment to be moved just outside their second plane.

PERCEPTOR

_Combat armor, radio equipment over here._ (Pointing)

He leaves directing equipment to walk around a shed – to Hightower. The crane is carrying two Destrongers on a leash. He’s also clearly still scarred, battle-damaged, but has some of his strength back. And a few of his wounds have begun healing, black burn-like scabs forming around damaged areas.

PERCEPTOR

_I’m glad you’ve retrieved some of them._

HIGHTOWER

_Wasn’t easy. But I had some help._

He looks over the Constructicon’s shoulder to see Rampage in the background, half-hidden by unmarked containers.

Hightower is nervous to say anything else, but he doesn’t have to. At Perceptor’s feet, a GUY FROM COMMAND taps – loudly enough that we hear the clink against the Autobot’s leg – for his attention. He looks down.

PERCEPTOR

_Yes?_

GUY FROM COMMAND

_Meeting with General Hawk, immediately. Command Building._

Perceptor nods.

PERCEPTOR

_I’ll be right there._

He follows the guy past several buildings before reaching Command again.

**INT. COMMAND – JAPAN BASE – MODERATELY LIT**

Perceptor walks in, meets Abernathy at eye level. The General leans heavily against the guardrail, aged but still very much intelligent, very much alive. His wide eyes examine the alien blue optics.

ABERNATHY

_Just got the report: Area 51 transmissions failed to respond to Army codewords._

PERCEPTOR

(matter-of-fact)

_Decepticons._

Abernathy nods.

PERCEPTOR (CONT’D)

_At least we know where to start. But it’d be a trap._

ABERNATHY

_What does that mean?_

PERCEPTOR

(remembering Convoy’s words)

_We spring it, of course. How many more men can you spare here?_

He runs over the numbers.

ABERNATHY

_Not many. Humans, five. Transformers... you’d know better than me._

Perceptor nods.

PERCEPTOR

_We’ll be off within the hour._

With that, he leaves. The meeting was short, remarkably to-the-point.

He walks out to resume helping with loading equipment.

**EXT. AIRSTRIP - JAPAN BASE – NIGHT**

Hightower walks around a corner, flips on an overhead lamp.

Rampage, Overload and Trench are all congregated in what once were shadows. They shrink back even as he steps closer.

HIGHTOWER

_Come with us. We need all the help we can get._

TRENCH

_No can do, Hightower._

Something about the Constructicon makes him look sorrowful, unsure what.

Hightower stares at his brothers for a long time.

Trench is an orange shovel, Rampage a deep red bulldozer. Overload is a silvery-green thing, hints of the old Decepticon purple in shoulder pylons. Together, they share an aura of alienness, unknowability. Shame.

Not to Hightower. Hightower sees his family. A family he fears he must learn to deny, just as they all have denied the greater Decepticon family.

HIGHTOWER

_And all of you feel this way?_

Rampage is silent. So is Overload. Sure, they beat him within an inch of his life a mere day ago, but they’re still his brothers. Not an odd mentality for Decepticons, but they’re just as guilty as the Autobots they once sought to wipe out.

Might still seek.

But Hightower doesn’t see that old malevolent fire in them; extinguished by the Autobot Convoy.

They are a part of Hightower.

Not for much longer.

HIGHTOWER

(coldly)

_We’ll be back in a few days, at most._

Out of nowhere, the red bulldozer speaks.

RAMPAGE

_No, you won’t._

Six sets of red eyes go wide. Something like pain.

Hightower decides he’s willing to leave them. He turns away, walks off.

Leaving three Constructicons to brood under the lamplight. All three have already tried to shy away from it, but that light’s not going anywhere.

RAMPAGE

(repeating)

_No, you won’t..._

CROSSFADE:

**INT. UNDERGROUND COMPLEX – AREA 51 – INTERROGATION-STYLE LIGHTING**

Darkness.

Opens his eyes – no, optics. Blue optics.

SLOW ANGLE OUT: His body is (mostly) intact. He’s dangling. By... two chains, one on each arm. His feet do not touch the floor.

As he regains consciousness, his optics narrow, his faceplate solidifies on his face.

Somewhere in front of him, a voice confirms Optimus’ situation.

THUNDERWING

_You’re awake. Now we can begin._

ROADGRABBER

_Now thi- _(static) -_is gonna be FUNNN!_

The other Decepticon stands behind a clearly-improvised console, hands on a Transformer-sized keypad just ready to go to town on this poor chap.

It’s abundantly clear that it’s not just chains wrapped around Optimus’ wrists. There are a few wires wrapping around the chains, some of which feed directly under his armor like electric IV drips.

Not good, in other words.

Thunderwing walks between combat vehicles Optimus has never seen before, stopping right in front of him.

OPTIMUS

_Torture?_

THUNDERWING

_I saw what you unleashed on Xxezz. We saw what you unleashed on Xxezz._

He leans in a bit farther, placing a clawed hand on Optimus’ shoulder, digging deep into metallic flesh, peeling paint and cells away in thin strips.

The other hand points upward: to the sky!

THUNDERWING

_ He _ _ saw it._

Optimus remains silent, waiting for whatever comes next. He’s (not necessarily) afraid so much as anxious.

But that’s a lie, isn’t it?

He’s terrified.

THUNDERWING

(to Roadgrabber)

_Give him something small._

The faulty car cackles brokenly, pretends to pop his knuckles, suddenly slams his hands down on the whole console.

This first electric current is strong enough to melt power cables. And it’s plugged directly into Optimus’ skeleton. Obviously, he jumps in suspension like a traumatized frog. His feet can’t go anywhere, his chains aren’t going anywhere, either.

The shock subsides when Thunderwing throws his torturer a hand signal. Optimus goes limp. We can clearly hear the ringing of metal for several seconds, clear as an orchestra of bells.

Slowly, both Thunderwing and Roadgrabber wait for the ringing – and the pain – to die down. It takes several more very long seconds to do so.

Silence.

THUNDERWING

_Again._

This demonstration is just as effective as the first.

Ringing.

Then silence.

Optimus goes limp again.

Thunderwing moves a bit closer to the truck, seeing the aura like jade dust forming around him. He fiddles with one of the light fixtures, focusing it on the outline of the MATRIX out of the dust:

A perfect circle with two elongated handles.

He leaves the fixture to sway back and forth, placing a finger on the Autobot’s chest.

He wipes a bit of the dust with fingers (claws retracted), twisting the handles into the shape of rings; fangs; downturned horns.

THUNDERWING

_This is how you did it. And now we have you._

OPTIMUS

_Not for long._

Red Decepticon eyes meet blue Autobots’. Fangs face faceplate.

THUNDERWING

_Is it voluntary? It comes out only when you will it to?_

Silence from the Autobot – the Autobot Prime.

THUNDERWING (CONT’D)

_And what does it do in return for its host? Does it..._

  * Gestures to Roadgrabber -
  * Flash –
  * Pain –
  * RINNNNNG -

THUNDERWING

_...Shield you?_

  * Another –
  * Flash –
  * Pain –
  * RINNNNNG –

THUNDERWING

_Apparently not. We can pry it out of you, after all._

The truck’s blue optics are pinched with struggle now. He must not break must not break must not break.

Several more moments of silence. We see sizzling marks at Optimus’ wrists and elbows, where the wires run under armor and into... whatever lies underneath. Black char-marks, almost like flesh burns.

Exactly like flesh burns.

Thunderwing’s terse assumptions are spot-on, and both Transformers know it.

THUNDERWING

_Again._

  * Flash –
  * Pain –
  * RINNNNNG –

ROADGRABBER

_C’mout, c’mout, where-_ (static, with rhythm) _-are!_

  * Another –
  * Flash –

But...

**EXT. SWAMP – CLOUDY - DAY – DISTORTED MEMORY**

It’s Colton. He’s back exactly where he was. He’s a soldier, a rifle in his hand, green uniform torn, covered in bright red blood. Classic image of [NAME OF WAR OMITTED].

An explosion somewhere nearby. Yelling. Animals.

His fingers drum against his rifle. He decides he will move, or he will die. He’s anxious to get moving.

Another explosion, but... not. It’s not an explosion so much as one big surge of energy. Like [ELECTRICITY].

He must find his comrades.

Through the forest. Branches, high bushes, leaves. He thinks there’s a helicopter overhead.

He emerges from the treeline like a bat out of Hell. The grass under his feet is already yellow, dead. Boots squelch in mud. Black mud.

He looks down at his rifle. It’s not a machine gun, but an energy weapon hooked to manacle on his right arm.

Overhead, beyond the hill in front of him and jutting from the short trees, there’s something like a volcano: the silver kind of volcano, ready to spew orange ash at any moment.

The helicopter – yes, a true Huey helicopter, blazing “Fortunate Son” or some hard anti-war anthem like that, passes overhead, blaring the angriest dirge it can over mounted speakers.

It drops a perfectly circular bomb on the volcano, shattering in midair and casting a heavy electric-blue net over the sky. Again, that old explosion. It’s the sizzling of jellyfish plasma, an old chemical weapon employed by the Xxezzi.

As the helicopter flies off, he hears the music suddenly intermit as the helicopter changes shape, then resume once the black Autobot finishes Transforming and flies off into the blazing sky.

Leaving him here on his own.

OPTIMUS

(O.S., from everywhere)

_Joseph Colton. Find me._

Screaming. Perhaps the most powerful screaming he’s heard in his life. Dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions of classically trained singers from the ages five to a hundred-and-five, yelling for help in perfect unison.

He runs towards the hill, climbing up towards the sound on all fours, weapon hanging uselessly from his wrist. The climb’s shorter than he expected.

Everything’s murky, cloudy, as if Xxezz’s sun is just an army of candles (Xxezz doesn’t have a sun, hence the oddity). And he’s not on Xxezz, not really. He’s in the place between places. He’s climbing the mountain.

But first he reaches the top of the foothill. A little like an exhausted creature near death, he slowly struggles to his feet. Intends to reach the top of the mountain on foot. He looks down, thinking about that – bare feet.

He looks back down the hill, sees what looks like his boots rolling down, running away like the footwear of some invisible thief.

COLTON

(echoing, watery, dreamlike)

_Hope that doesn’t happen again._

OPTIMUS

(O.S., quickly, omniscient)

_It will._

Colton does not question this; he’s a soldier. In a dream. He doesn’t question anything.

Just walks up the steep incline of the approaching incline, feet sliding, his own sense of gravity pinning him upright to the mountain, walking up the wall like an old cartoon bandit.

He readies that odd weapon of his, tries raising it to eye level when the bomb proves it’s not a bomb at all. He hits a wall of blue jellyfish fluid and is knocked down, flat against the volcano, almost upside-down relative to the old ground.

OPTIMUS

(almost like commentary)

_Bindings._

He quickly stumbles to his feet again, hearing the ringing in his head – like metal, it is. The surface of the jellyfish net shimmers, a lake of ether he cannot come above for air.

Unless he shoots a hole in it.

He does exactly that. Just like that, raises the silvery things to his shoulder with two hands, an odd task given its odder shape, and yanks his right wrist back, pulling his firecord as he squeezes the trigger with his left hand.

A green flare the size of a human torso flies with the force of a planetary collision; through the jellyfish net, he follows it as it punches a hole, continues upward indefinitely.

Into the flaring sky. A cloudy black-grey sky. It disappears in the clouds and is eaten. Colton hears the Giant crunching in between its ethereal teeth like rat bones. It’s not a sound he wants to hear, but there’s no escape.

Fire again, that Giant will find him.

But he’s already punched through the net. And now he needs to climb through it.

To him it’s just like a doorway. He passes through without incident. The air here seems different, more electrified. He hears more explosions like it in the distance. No doubt, this war could be going on elsewhere.

No. Just the echoes. What he does here is all that matters.

Thunder overhead. Yellow-orange lightning. Black-purple lightning. Red lightning – but that’s an echo, too. Left by an ancient Monger.

Unimportant. He keeps climbing the silvery stone surface of the volcano, increasingly defiant of gravity as bare feet cling to every surface they can.

Without warning, his manacle unclips itself. He tries to catch it, to no avail. It tumbles off into the abyss and bounces when it hits the jellyfish net.

He’ll just have to continue on without it. He must reach the top of this volcano.

Colton has to resort to all fours again when the surface becomes jagged. He grips razor-sharp handles, slicing his hands open, oozing blood the same shade of silver as the mountain he’s climbing, as if it’s claimed him.

BACK TO: the rifle. It flies back through the hole, dropping to the ground and disintegrating in the dead grass.

But Colton doesn’t notice that. He’s on his own path now.

He grips something odd, looks up at it.

It’s a human leg. Still clad in a sock and shoe, oozing the first red blood since coming to in that swamp. The blood he was covered in has gradually turned black since we first saw it on him. The owner of that leg is crying somewhere.

He wants to cry out, mouth the words “I’m sorry,” but that is not what he will do. He will use that handhold and just keep climbing.

And climbing.

Before he knows it, he’s reached the top. It’s a ceiling.

A ceiling with more handholds.

Again, he makes the decision without thinking. He grips the silver spikes, letting his own black blood roll down his arms and sleeves freely, without beginning or end.

He monkeybars his way to the edge. All that’s left now is to... somehow get on top of this odd platform and gaze down into the volcano’s mouth.

OPTIMUS

_You know what you have to do._

He nods to himself best he can with his head between his arms. He takes that brave leap as he lets go - !

! - And the world itself declares its independence. Gravity wills itself to swirl around him, letting him fall upward and land squarely on the top of this wide-lipped funnel.

Long drop to the bottom, but that’s unimportant. It doesn’t even look real anyway. Slowly, he begins sliding his way forward, feet gladly biting up every sharp end they can. The flesh on his legs have been shredded and there are even visible spots of bone – bright white against the black blood and crimson viscera.

He must approach ever closer to the mouth of this monster, gaze down into it. The sky above him is orange-yellow stars, clear as night. Might very well be night (if dreamworlds rotate around a dream-sun).

The Prime was right. He knows what he must do.

He keeps going.

Up ahead of him, he sees that old cannon laying against a spike that comes up to his elbows. He approaches it, seeing the gaping mouth of the hole up ahead.

More explosions. They make him want to jolt, bark, tense up, Transform into some state beyond solid, liquid or gas. A True State not for him.

He gazes at the weapon. Good as new, save some scuffmarks where it hit rocks, and yellow-brown grass caught in its many crevices.

The boots did not come with it. Instead, a pair of silver MOCCASINS: Native American shoes decidedly stealthier and more efficient that the Europeans’ boots. Not much for history but very much taking what he’s given, he does what he can to slide his black legbricks (no longer feet) into the awkward things. He reattaches the manacle to his right wrist and continues onward.

Not much more now. The screaming choir is louder than ever now, just ready to vomit blood, fall over and die in each other’s arms.

He’s at the edge now, looks down, points with that weapon of his.

DOGS. DOGS EVERYWHERE. Hungry, ugly, vicious things, a horrid combination of mismatched flesh, diesel engines and liquid metal. Living metal. Jutting airplane parts, rubber tires and bladed weapons. An amalgamation. Monsters. Monsters with red eyes and hearts only for the Void.

His enemies.

But the space they’re in is far too great to be just dogs. They’re gathered around something, on top of something, guarding it fiercely.

He raises his weapon again, pulls the firecord and squeezes off an emerald shot.

The dogs’ barking rises to levels beyond sound. They flock around the flare where it stops, each one seeking to eat it, stamp it out, take it for themselves, it differs for each of them, but none of them want anyone else to have it.

He sees the square thing they were gathered around just moments ago.

A black box. On that black box, the yellow caution stripes of something heavy. In big white military-stenciled letters:

AREA 51.

He hardly thinks to notice that his moccasins have come off, slide like living beings off his feet and fall into the pit with the dogs.

Nor that the flesh up to his waist is rotted, burned, decaying faster than anything has ever happened to the human body before, on any plane of existence...

  * A BRIGHT FLASH! –

**INT. UNDERGROUND COMPLEX – AREA 51**

Optimus feels that next shock. His eyes have gone beyond green, become pure white. The electricity surges though him one more time, and the lights inside the Air Force base all flicker for a moment.

THUNDERWING

(with force)

_STOP!_

Roadgrabber needs a moment to process this. But he shuts it down.

Optimus’ armor does not ring. At least, not if we’re listening for something that gradually dies down. Just drones on, probably for an incredibly long time.

Oh, how Thunderwing HATES that sound!

He can’t break through.

Not through the breaking of willpower, at least.

THUNDERWING

_Give me a prying tool._

Roadgrabber scrambles around his little makeshift workstation, trying to find something good he can use. Finally, he gives a “Ah-ha!” as he pulls out a set of explosives. The kind used for breaking into armored vehicles... or destroying them from the inside.

The Decepticon commander takes the bandolier of what are grenade-sized to him. With a rushed intensity he sticks them to Optimus’ frame, then backs away.

They go off, and we hear Optimus briefly _yip_ in pain like an animal. Living metal sears, bubbles, cracks. But the cloud clears faster than most debris clouds, and they were essentially prank firecrackers.

And through what glass is left, he sees the slightly magnified outline of that same MATRIX. So close, what he’s been sent here by the Emperor to find, and he CAN’T GET TO THE FUCKING THING!

The commander resorts to a much cruder method. He unsheathes the claws of his fingertips, digs them into Optimus’ neck and head. The claws extend as he does, and the jet yells in some primal form of frustration.

He hears the claws crack an outer layer, goes silent. Resheathes his claw fingers, takes a step back.

The Autobot’s blue helmet has developed several hairline fractures from places like bullet holes. Same on his chest and sternum.

The hate blazes in Thunderwing’s eyes – not optics, but eyes. Eyes just like those of the Human part of him Pretends to be.

OPTIMUS

(muffled, garbled, over his radio)

_“Come and get it - for only twenty-three ninety-nine plus shipping fees!”_

It’s clear that Optimus is not letting himself be taken down again, and he’s never let himself be truly compromised.

He glares at the Prime one more time, then turns and walks away. Very quickly. Roadgrabber, just for shits and giggles, hits the red Peterbilt with some more juice. But he’s the only one that cares anymore.

**EXT. AREA 51 BASE – NIGHT**

Thunderwing emerges, clearly angry, knocking down the combat vehicle Roadblock’s been testing. Two of the Transformer’s selves see this and come running. The third is, of course, just an oversized sentient truck.

ROADBLOCK (ROBOT)

(concerned)

_What’s going on, boss?_

The commander sees his second-in-command, regains control a bit, straightens out. Doubtful he was expecting anyone to see him like this.

Roadblock’s human form steps out from the radio tower, rests on the guardrail, watching.

THUNDERWING

(grimly)

_Nothing, it’s just... We can’t break the thing. He’s standing up to the pain we put him through, not letting himself crack._

ROADBLOCK

_Toughest nuts are the roughest nuts._

Thunderwing nods at that – an awfully human gesture, we can be sure of it. But he’s done it before. And something so low as an Autobot can still have that stubbornness which shows up so often among behaviorally diverse worlds.

THUNDERWING

_Just keep at it?_

ROADBLOCK (HUMAN)

(embellishing a drawl, yelling through his hands)

_That’s right, just keep on at ‘er, son! Even tough nuts crack!_

A moment of silence.

ROADBLOCK (ROBOT)

_Not only that, but was letting those two loose such a good idea?_

This is a question Thuderwing can answer, and answer truthfully. With confidence, even.

THUNDERWING

(with a grim smirk)

_Only so long as they think they escaped. But they could be our only hope. I need all of you here... when the fighting starts._

ROADBLOCK (UNISON)

_Amen to that. I want to kill some fuckers._

Thunderwing cringes - disapproval of the expletive. But his second-in-command is right.

Still, he’s scared. Both of them are. They’re the bigger, more powerful force, but they understand what they are. They have only a vague hint of what that Autobot down there is. It is their enemy, it is unknown to them, and it must be destroyed. From the Outside, it seems.

Thunderwing clenches his fist, turning (of what still exists in his Robot Mode) his jet engines aimlessly.

VWHOOM.

**EXT. NEW MEXICO DESERT – JUST BEFORE DAWN**

ANECDOTE: Colton jerks up in his seat. He’s seen it all, knows what he must do, where they must go. Almost like his (hallucination?) of Xxezz on the plane. He’s panting, holds his hands in front of them to ensure they are intact, rubs his right wrist.

DUKE

(more caring than anyone’s heard him in a long time)

_You okay, man?_

COLTON

_Yeah, yeah, I’m..._ (swallows) _Area 51._

No one understands what he says, but no one questions it, either.

COLTON

_That’s where we have to go. They’re waiting for us. But we can take them._

TRAKKER

_Didn’t work so well last time._

DUKE

_It’ll work._ (knowing something will be different)_ We’ll make it work._

Skids concludes without saying a word – flips on his radio to a fitting channel.

He hits an industrial station, now one of the most popular genres after fully embracing the post-Japan worldview. And that view again serves them.

It’s a Gary Numan song – simple, pounding electronic drumbeat overlaid by synth drones and high-gain guitar, plus a trombone section and some handheld percussion. Gossip says he wrote it the day after the third Transformer touched down in the ocean. Truth is, he was overcome by creative impulse a day or two earlier, and just recorded “Berserker” like his life depended on it. It's not the "Berserker" we know, but a bit of a different version.

GARY NUMAN

_You are a dying solid_

_Marching on and on and on and on without_

_Escape from the brittle truth_

**INT. AUTOBOT SHIP – SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC – NIGHT**

EST.: the arrowhead shape is undeniable, more alien than Galvanized Iron’s carrier. It brought the original Autobots here in hibernation, and they’ve dropped from the sky in it over many a world. It casts no shadow on starlit water.

Inside, Perceptor feels strangely at home in a way this place has never made him feel before. He lowers a hand to one of the new Destrongers’ heads. It’s a golden thing, an oddity he’s never seen before.

A tech runs across an added catwalk, leans over to yell to Perceptor.

In the music, Cedric Sharpley suspends the song with a roll on the floor tom. The rhythm guitarist and synth bassist strike a dissonant chord.

HUMAN TECH

_Message from New Mexico: it’s them!_

PERCEPTOR

_What’s it say?_

We hear the rhythmic cipher as the tech translates the data for him.

HUMAN TECH

_“Area 51, you’ll know the signal when you see it.”_

Perceptor nods and the tech goes. The song resumes. Numan’s signature Vox Humana drones for a few lines, doubles melody when he comes back in.

GARY NUMAN

_I’ll question everything_

_I’ll trade new dreams for old_

_Do you wanna come, do you wanna come, with me?_

_Do you wanna come, do you wanna come, with me now?_

SLOW FADE TO:

Black.

Key change. A new breakdown, a gong is struck, the song continues. The Vox Humana throws in more hints of the melody.

Fade out.

Silent.

Blackness.

S.O.:

** TO BE CONCLUDED... **


	4. Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Showdown at Area 51!

Black.

A brief light show, before we begin: white pinpricks pop up one by one, swirl around each other before realizing this isn’t a light show, it’s an interlude.

An interlude that is now over.

As the battle begins...

**EXT. AREA 51 – DAY – NOT LONG BEFORE DUSK**

ANECDOTE: Bludgeons – both of them - are on patrol. Carnivac’s larger form tags along, seemingly bored.

The Sun has almost disappeared behind the mountains. A wind blows through the bushes, even creating the old Western’s tumbleweed – which rolls by the human Bludgeon’s feet. He brings his blade down and STABS straight through it, causing the dead thing to crumble on the ground.

Carnivac barks, missing his smaller self, almost like they’re two completely different beings (which they are, yet are not).

BLUDGEON (ROBOT)

(cynically humorous battle cry)

_Ha!_

They know the battle will come soon. They’ll be ready.

**INT. SPACE-AGE DINER – A FEW MILES OUTSIDE AREA 51 – CONT.**

Colton has urged his men to stop and eat here on impulse, as if expecting to find something here. And he doesn’t say it, but he knows he will; he just doesn’t know what yet.

So here they are, stripped down to the least torn-up clothes they have, still clearly a gaggle of military men trying to wind down after a long day. As the name suggests, everything in this restaurant is space-age: chrome silver, crimson plush booths, waiters and waitresses in some Halloween variant of the government spook-suit. There’s so few of them, they take up only a semicircular corner booth and a nearby table for four.

“ALIEN” WAITRESS

_What’ll it be for you gentlemen?_

They sound off their drink orders: water or coffee, no exceptions. Save Colton, at least.

COLTON

(with all the military sternness you can expect)

_Chocolate milkshake, please._

Not even the waitress was fully expecting that. But after a moment, she scratches out the drink order she assumed he’d make and writes beneath it in tiny, tiny text.

WAITRESS

_You all coming from the base?_

DUKE

_Base?_

She points out the window, to the mountains. And the base nestled somewhere down there.

DUKE

_Oh. We’re..._

COLTON

_We’re heading back there, yeah. Long day. _(Chuckles socially)

Every soldier there can see he’s twisting the truth. The waitress has her suspicions, but it’s clear that they _are_ soldiers. What goes on over there is top-secret, anyway. Same story with the weapons fire and odd noises coming from there, secretive though their operations are.

WAITRESS

_Alrighty, then. Your drinks’ll be out shortly._

And with that, she scurries off to take the orders to the kitchen.

An old man nearby leans in, too, as if he expects to hear the real story.

Soldiers – Duke and Trakker in particular – stare him down. He’s a veteran, too, but he’s not a soldier anymore. At least, not in the ways that’d matter here. And certainly not the kind to fight gigantic shapeshifting aliens, either.

DUKE

(leaning over, whispering)

_What the hell’d you order us here for?_

COLTON

_I don’t know. Trust it._

DUKE

_Can’t trust something not there._

He has no way of explaining it further. He throws a glance outside, where night rapidly advances on them. Prowl has left his parking spot, Welt has been getting anxious and flashing his blinkers, Skids has taken to playing the radio to himself. 70s tunes, by what little he can hear.

  * THEN! –

He sees something pass under the restaurant’s outside lights. In the distance, a green-skinned Tall Man alien waves happily at any passersby from atop another sign. Flying saucers, sharp-fanged android fighter craft, and oversized slugs take up all Colton can see in the distance – but the shadow will reveal itself to him one more time.

It plays with him, darts behind some overgrowths of grass between the cracks in the sidewalk and curb.

He taps Duke on the shoulder, signals for his attention. The man turns, and Colton points.

COLTON

(quickly)

_There it is!_

It takes the less imaginative soldier a moment to see it. But see it he does.

THE ALBINO RABBIT.

It plays with a beetle flailing on the ground. It’s not a small beetle, either. Neither belongs here.

DUKE

_Rabbits don’t eat bugs. Decepticon?_

Colton shakes his head.

COLTON

_No. I think that’s it._

DUKE

(skeptical)

_Your “magical sign”?_

COLTON

(with total seriousness, a soldier’s plea)

_Yes. Please, Mr. Konrad Ducard Hauser, trust me._

And so he does. They watch the little battle take place. So do we.

CLOSE UP: whenever the rabbit gets too close, the beetle simply scurries away, but never too far. Almost like it has a territory to defend. Colton estimates the thing’s easily the size of his thumb – by no means small, indeed.

So large, in fact, that the rabbit manages to strike close enough to nab one of the creature’s wings between his teeth. At that, the beetle somehow launches itself onto the rabbit, who begins flailing, certain that it’ll be bit! – it’ll die!

The battle never leaves the two soldiers’ views. The other soldiers try to butt in, to understand what’s happening. No avail. They don’t see it, either. Only Colton and Duke.

The rabbit eventually manages to shake the beetle out, requiring some bending-over with one leg neither of them think should ever be possible for the little creatures. It catches the little creature in a paw, throws it against the pavement.

Oh, but the little bug isn’t done yet! It quakes in place as the red-eyed mammal approaches slowly.

FLASH!

The beetle’s just a half-dollar-sized mound of guts on the pebbled paving. The rabbit sits still for several moments... and falls over into an empty parking spot. Some of the thing’s (poisoned?) flesh is matted against its mouth.

Duke’s eyes have gone wide – he’s seen plenty, but “suicide bomber beetle” is something else entirely.

Colton looks grim.

DUKE

_Holy..._

COLTON

_Yeah._

He doesn’t need to say that that was their sign.

The waitress returns, right on time, carrying two trayfuls of drinks. She begins setting them down, taking special note of the milkshake going to Colton. He nods thankfully at her, raises his glass. The rest of Galvanized Iron do the same.

COLTON

_We’ve been out here for several days. We’re tired, whittled down. But tonight we finish this. The right way. Probably the crazy way._

DUKE

_Amen._

TRAKKER

_I’ll drink to that._

SATO

_Hear, hear._

And they all take meaningful drinks as a group. In a way, the final battle’s already begun.

It’s waiting for them.

TIME CUT (mute): now they’re getting up, heading out. That droning we’ve been hearing this whole time? It’s gone, too. Total silence, leaving a sort of brutal clarity. Colton pulls the last of their emergency money out of his pocket, leaves a decent tip for their service. We see that they didn’t order any food, only drinks. Now back to business.

They head out (restore sound). Get in their cars. Prowl shows up back at his parking spot, which has miraculously avoided being occupied by any idiot in a big truck. It is, however, the only parking space with a dead rabbit sprawled in the middle. Colton sees the parking and cringes, seeing it almost as another layer of the vision.

He gets in on Prowl’s driver side.

Three cars pull out. A few of the rowdy soldiers have left the Space Age Diner.

The rest remain there, looking over some of the cars in the parking lot. This next part shouldn’t be so much fun.

RETURN TO:

**EXT. AREA 51 – NIGHT – WELL-LIT**

Thunderwing is waiting for them. Unashamedly, he stands in the open, ready to kill whatever comes at him. He can’t let this get any more out of hand than it already is. He must have himself and his men ready to shut down even the slightest attack.

And he knows full well that the attack will come. Soon. Very soon.

Sooner than even he can expect, sure enough.

Roadgrabber is out there, too. Carnivac. Roadblock. Bludgeon.

They need to wait.

The base has been turned into one big arena. Plenty of room, plenty of light, but plenty of cover by shadow and structure, too.

Any minute now, they will come. Somewhere deep in the complex, Optimus Prime counts down the seconds...

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

GUNFIRE.

FLARES.

All at once, before anyone – even us – has any idea what we’re witnessing, we see outsiders pouring in from all sides. Humans, a couple cars – some of which are Transformers. Some very pissed Space Age customers will later find them totaled outside the base, as if abducted by aliens.

The Decepticons, as no one is surprised, are ready. As a Jeep passes the commander’s head he slams it to the ground with a shift of his weight. A magnificent CRAKRUNCH as it meets ground facefirst, yellow headlights flickering and going out.

Another car rolls by his feet, and he stamps it out like a bug. Rather like a beetle, in fact.

ANECDOTE: Prowl Transforms before slamming into Bludgeon head-on. Colton is thrown a good twenty feet – thankfully, he rolls on the pavement for most of those. He comes up firing a machine gun, nicking the larger Bludgeon’s body before the smaller one charges him, katana raised. He fires at it, failing to stop the thing, but the battle between the two larger beings separates the two before physical contact can be made.

ANECDOTE: Skids’ contact is equally violent, forcing him to expel Duke and another soldier from their seats in a violent display as Roadblock’s oversized third body slams into both the Autobot and the Destronger alongside him. Gunfire and clashing metal. Gnashing of teeth. Skids straight-up punches the permanent Decepticon truck, leaving a dent the size of a car door in its long hood.

ANECDOTE: A muscle car rolls across the ground, hitting a building that, in all likelihood, hadn’t been there two days ago. It’s not served its purpose yet; it rolls across the ground, already battered, to make a sizeable diversion for Roadgrabber. He accepts the duel of wheels, and the two begin dancing, slamming each other into whatever they can find, interfering freely with the rest of the battle.

ANECDOTE: Now Skids is tearing into the tank Bludgeon, who hardly gets a shot off before his cannon is bent like a plastic straw and he Transforms, pulling out a spiked club that earns him his name. Skids tries to knock the thing out of his hands, only gets thrown to the ground. That muscle car from earlier slams itself and Roadgrabber into Bludgeon’s knees, bringing him down as Skids kicks himself upward, landing a single punch to the face before Welt, crazed, runs under his own feet.

ANECDOTE: Thunderwing reaches down, grabbing a Jeep and throwing it over the top of a one-story building. Machine gunfire nicks against his shoulder and cheek, and he turns, fangs out and eyes blaring like police lights.

PANDEMONIUM. The battle devolves into exactly that: nothing but pandemonium. Everything’s colliding with everything, everything roars, everything glows under the almost theatrical lights. One big mesh of red optics, burning rubber and muzzle flashes - !

All at once the battle turns from chaos to order.

With Galvanized Iron forced to the ground. At least two more human soldiers dead. Colton, Duke, and Trakker are grouped with the other human soldiers around Sato’s dead body. No one really knew him that well; yet seeing him dead still makes them realize he was once alive. Story of a soldier’s life.

Roadblock’s human self keeps Sato’s machine gun trained on the remaining soldiers.

Bludgeon rips off the door of a sky-blue lemon, dragging out its driver and throwing him to the ground in the direction of the herd.

Duke’s the one to try something stupid, and Bludgeon walks up as if from nowhere, casually punches him in the chest (breaking at least one rib), rolls the curled-up figure back with the rest of the herd. He becomes the second sentry, holding a katana high with intent to dice up whoever tries him next.

ROADBLOCK (HUMAN)

_That’s right, stay right there._

Thunderwing wants to gloat, he really does. But he must stay prepared for whatever comes next. There’s still work to do.

Bludgeon has Skids under his foot; Prowl is held in place by Roadblock’s two larger forms. Carnivac and Roadgrabber hold Welt in place together, the smaller Decepticon dog taunting it from the front, nipping in its space.

Thunderwing approaches the dog as Colton, Duke and the rest watch rather helplessly. They’ll go down fighting, but they’ll not go down massacred.

Large red optics scan the gigantic silvery creature above it. Equally red optics stare down in something between pity and utter hatred of the enemy.

He scowls.

His feet, it seems from human eye level, are clawed as well. Strangely mammalian in their shape: something between a hoof, a boot and a lucky rabbit’s foot.

The hatred reaches a crescendo in a moment. Skids is torn apart by it.

THUNDERWING

_You’re the greatest traitor of all._

And proceeds to Kick the Dog. Once. Twice. Welt’s jaw comes loose. In his skull. He yelps, and the Decepticon commander places the dog’s face, open-mouthed, against the pavement.

The third time he stomps down on the dog’s head, fully shattering Welt’s jaw and pieces of his main skull.

Again.

Again.

The Destronger’s head is in pieces on the ground. Skids’ optics wink in and out, as if trying to prevent something from seeping through.

In five blows, Thunderwing has killed the already-weakened Destronger dog. Rather like a dog himself, he shakes the last of the living metal viscera from his foot. Given time, it will liquefy, or else simply rot.

THUNDERWING

_A loyal dog, trained by its masters to be loyal and willful. So similar to your own world’s dogs, in fact, that you can take them for yourselves just as easily. It’s a waste._

ROADBLOCK

_Boss, we really don’t have time to wa –_

THUNDERWING

(snapping, without turning his head)

_Speak when you’re spoken to, soldier._

All three seconds-in-command shut up again. All of them see it: the breaking.

The commander waits another moment or two before speaking. He’s clearly more agitated now, wants victory on an emotional level, too, now. At least the appearance of it.

THUNDERWING

_Do you know what brought us here? Nothing about this planet is worthy of any Decepticon, down to the lowliest maggot with a jet Mode. Really, you’re not worth the bother. Yet here we are, giving you undeserved attention and wasting our own time._

(beat)

_But with this, it’s been confirmed for years: you are the last of the Autobots, and with you goes our greatest annoyance. Your Prime’s precious cargo will finally be in better hands._

Years? Only years? Skids estimates they’d been asleep for at least a million of those, maybe more. Is Thunderwing being vague? Teasing? Neither seems right. Only reason Prowl’s not thinking the same thing is he’s too angry at everything to think straight.

THUNDERWING (CONT’D)

(increasingly delirious)

_Now? _(chuckles)_ Now we can expand! Outward, onward, to whatever corners of this whole universe we want! You can’t stop us anymore, no one can. We’ve won, don’t you understand?_

SKIDS

(smartly)

_Do you?_

Thunderwing doesn’t hesitate a moment. Skids barely puts the question mark on his retort before Thunderwing slams a foot into his face. Bludgeon hauls him up to be punched again by the Decepticon.

THUNDERWING

_SHUT UP!_

Another punch.

ROADBLOCK

_Boss?_

We hear the sound just as the three-bodied Decepticon does. Otherworldly engines: a common enough noise among Transformers, but rarely hurling from the direction of the mountains with the force of ten-million crazed bulls charging a matador as one.

Thunderwing lands another blow before he hears it too.

Colton grimly wants to smile. Duke, too. And Skids, who was anxious to buy time.

THE AUTOBOT CRAFT DESCENDS FROM THE SKY.

Just as they had done so long ago on the Korean base, more Autobots drop now.

Perceptor.

Scrounge.

Another Destronger (LOUTMOUTH).

A dozen or so human soldiers in fully functional cybersuits.

Forget not their greatest weapon of all:

Hightower, Trench, Rampage and Overload once were components of the mighty Devastator II. Now they are LANDFILL, the Unity of Brothers.

THUNDERWING

_No, no..._

Oh, yes, yes. They drop, and the humans open fire. Dogs snarl. Construction equipment WHIRS weightily.

THUNDERWING

_You know what to do! Battle formations!_

The Decepticons do. They’ll face this threat just as they faced the last wave of resistance.

A wave which, much to their inconvenience, still has some fight left in them.

And with backs turned...

Skids pushes backwards and up, getting a hand free and twisting on his feet to land a good blow on the momentarily-unstable Bludgeon. Prowl has a similar idea, and manages to free himself.

Perceptor hits the ground. Welt. Loutmouth. Landfill. If we thought the battle with fewer combatants was chaos!

Colton picks up a weapon, fires at the smaller Bludgeon, who runs at him before being plowed away by the body of a fellow Decepticon. But his place is not here, and it never was.

And he has only a vague idea where he’s really supposed to be.

Through the gun flashes, floodlights going out one by one, and the optics and mounted lamps of the Transformers and cybersuits, he sees Duke nearby.

COLTON

_Duke! DUKE!_

It takes a few more tries, but the human hears him, and turns his head long enough to be distracted, eyes turned away from the smaller Roadblock wielding a large tire like a hammer. Colton responds by shooting the aggressor in the face, and he drops the thing, clutching his eye.

COLTON

_C’mon!_

The fighting seems to be everywhere. But they’re not fighting to win, only to make it from one side of the area to the other alive. Colton points with his free hand, struggles to maintain a one-handed firing position. Duke, not being the guide, fills the role of Active Shooter.

A whole dog flies over their heads, screaming rather comically. At this, the two men finally get down and start crawling as opposed to running on their feet.

COLTON

(pointing to one such of several buildings)

_There. That’s where we go._

Duke wants to ask “Why?”, decides against it. There’s no questioning Colton anymore on anything. They just keep crawling.

When they reach the wall, they get up, edge along at a tentative rate, guns trained outward, eyes squarely on their entrance. Decepticons were apparently humans now, but would they have the human habit of keeping doors locked? Or changing the combination?

Colton tries the latch, nods to Duke. They pull the door open and head inside, guns raised - !

**INT. ABANDONED BUILDING ON-BASE - DARK**

But it’s empty.

And neither has kept a flashlight on them. Their guns are not equipped with clip-ons, their cybersuits are ravaged beyond reasonable repair, and any handhelds would have been long lost by now, anyways.

DUKE

_Too dark in here._

He reaches for a light switch. Flips it on.

Nothing waiting in the dark so far. But it’s been cleared out. Nothing but tan walls, hard floor and some dark spots where grime’s started to come in. Not so human after all.

Large bulge of a lobby to their left, wall and hallway straight ahead on the right side. Completely dark.

COLTON

_This way. Get the lights._

He goes on ahead into the blackness – not just a normal darkness, but like a tar that hangs in the air, slowly crawling up everything. That’s where they need to go. With Duke behind, he reaches for the next lightswitch. This place gives him the creeps. He wonders if this in the kind of stuff Colton has nightmares about. Wouldn’t surprise him in the least, especially not with his military history.

DUKE

(freely)

_Scared?_

COLTON

(shakily)

_More than you can know._

The lights take a moment to buzz on. They flicker, too, probably won’t stay on for long.

The two soldiers walk down the hallway. Only one even has a suggestion of what awaits them.

RETURN TO:

**EXT. AIR FORCE BASE – NIGHT – WELL-LIT**

The chaos has not ceased. Doubtful anyone’s even noticed two human soldiers have gone missing.

Thunderwing slams a fist into Skids’ jaw, is rear-ended by Scrounge. He turns, sees the dog, is enraged, has barely the time to do anything more before Landfill disengages, and Rampage whoops wildly, leaping onto the larger Decepticon’s shoulders and wrapping a ‘dozer-tread arm around the Transformer’s neck. They don’t choke, but they can have their necks broken.

And that’s not even it, either. He’s just pulling Thunderwing’s head up so Skids can slam a good-sized fist into his throat.

And this really hurts him.

As in, destroys a good bit of his neck and skull. Uncharacteristic of him, he screams in rage, swinging clubbed hands wildly, metallic skin beginning to undergo what looks like RAPID CORROSION AND REVERSE-CORROSION across his entire body. Silver turns brown, green, yellow under the lights, fluctuates back and forth with its original luster.

THUNDERWING

(garbled, speech function failing)

_Yit sclit... outle!_

(slightly clearer)

_You little shits!_

His left arm comes up, and Skids is turned to face the robot Roadblock, who throws him aside.

Rampage has gone off elsewhere too, beckoned by the demands of a dog who won’t shut up. The two Decepticons share a moment of understanding.

ROADBLOCK

_Boss?_

THUNDERWING

_ Run. _

No protest, no pain, only understanding. Without the slightest acknowledgement, he puts the command into action. His human and vehicle (semi with the snowplow) forms are running to meet him. Swinging punches, firing in all directions and running over whatever gets in his way, the three Roadblocks finally meet, and with a single fluid motion, Transform into one another, melting, driving away as a singular vehicle like it’s a turtle shell.

Hopefully, the others heard the order, too. And the Autobots will not. Knowing he’s done something to keep their mission alive, he faces these Autobot enemies with a distinctly Decepticon form of pride.

Prowl sees him left unattended by the battle at hand, all at once is on top of the deformed Transformer.

THUNDERWING

_End it._

PROWL

_Gladly._

He swings. Blow after blow after blow, shaking loose the liquid robot’s CPU, fully destabilizing his T-Cog. The corroding/de-corroding effect intensifies, flares almost in time with each strike to what’s left of his head and neck. Pieces of Prowl’s hand go flying, too, but again he’s too angry and too driven to care.

One last punch, and finally the remains of Thunderwing’s head disintegrate, or explode, or simply shatter into fine powder.

Quickly, he steps back. This batch in particular were pretty unstable on a cellular level, it seems; he hasn’t seen metallic warping work that quickly since before Xxezz.

The brownish-green grime settles on the remains of Thunderwing’s body. Piece by piece, he tries to Transform back into whatever fighter jet he was. He’s so badly damaged that he can’t; even in death, he wants something else to Transform into. Prowl leaves him there to figure it out, Transforms in midair and zooms over the larger Bludgeon’s head. The tank’s turret tries and fails to follow him, bent and broken though it is.

It also tries ramming him, but even for a wannabe samurai a tank isn’t abundant in speed. He Transforms, taunts him by going over the tank again, and it Transforms, too.

BLUDGEON

_You’ll die, maggot!_

Prowl has no dry retort for his enemy this time, only a glance over the samurai’s shoulder to see an approaching Destronger. The gold one.

The police car decides to go for something fancy this time, letting the skull-faced tank follow his eyes, become momentarily distracted –

Prowl FLIPS him. A full-on grip on his torso, twisting and throwing to the ground like a pesky table. Scrounge still comes at him, and his club’s been thrown from his hand for a while now. Prowl has no shame in kicking him while the golden Destronger tears him to shreds.

The dog looks up at Prowl.

And smiles. Chunks of corroded metal are gathered like sticky cereal on razor teeth. Red eyes go wide, almost adorable. Not that Prowl finds him adorable, or even wants to. He scowls at the dog.

Still, there’s a car and a dog. Both of which have two bodies. But the battle’s winding down. They’re winning – at least, they have the appearance of victory. It never comes this easy, _especially_ not with Deus Ex Machina.

They’ll all just have to wait and see.

**INT. UNDERGROUND COMPLEX – UNLIT**

Duke lets there be light. And he sees the light, and it is good.

Military vehicles as far as the eye can see. Most of them not due for service for another decade, at least. The lights buzz insistently, trying to drown out the noises waiting in the darkness.

Colton inches forward, boots shuffling against the floor. They’re close now, incredibly close.

He cranes his head up, sees what they’re looking for.

Convoy – Optimus – strung up towards the other end of the room, copper-colored cables running under his armor at the wrists, elbows and neck like Tesla coil IV lines.

His optics rise to meet them.

OPTIMUS

(weakly)

_Colton. Duke._

They approach, walking in between the large vehicles, guns raised as if they will mow down a ten-ton thing with solid-core tires bigger than they are.

They see the apparatus, the control console.

Colton’s eyes go over to the other side of the room.

It’s been cleared out.

And now stores several protopods. Kind of like the one the Prime was recovered from.

Five protopods, to be exact. All in varying conditions.

That was their way in. Colton has no idea how they were supposed to leave without repairing those things.

They could not leave. Not without help. Help which would not arrive now, not for some time.

COLTON

_See if you can disable that rig, I’m going to check this out._

He inches towards the thing, gun still raised.

Into the dark corner, where doubtless there’s a bit of mold growing. No light can touch it, like the nook between floorboards you can’t reach.

His eyes adjust a bit more.

A human!

Dirty, exhausted, shaking. In an Air Force pilot’s jumpsuit. He doesn’t seem to realize anyone’s there at all. He’s not even restrained by anything, just curled up in the corner waiting for it all to be over.

COLTON

_Airman?_

Now he notices. His head turns, eyes come up, lips are quivering.

On his pilot’s uniform is his name and callsign:

WINSTON

THUNDERWING

His rank stripes have been torn off, it looks like. His uniform in general is torn. And the man looks like he’s been through a radioactive accident, like the one not too long ago at Chernobyl. He’s pale, rotting like a corpse where he sits.

He nods.

THUNDERWING

_Yes, that’s me._

Colton approaches. He’s hesitant to touch him, he might be contagious. But he helps him to his feet anyway.

He helps the man back to where Duke and Convoy – no, Optimus – are waiting for them.

DUKE

_No progress. He’s stuck here._

COLTON

_Anything, airman?_

Thunderwing shakes his head. Nope, nothing, nada!

CONVOY

_I can free myself if you can kill the power._

Duke jimmies the bottom of the console open. Cables come crawling out, just anxious to be free of that claustrophobic place.

Why couldn’t Colton have chosen an electrician to drag along with him? He knew the Marines shouldn’t have been his career of choice! With his boot knife he begins sawing at cables, getting a couple sparks, hoping one of these doesn’t just electrocute him and the truck both. The truck can’t turn his head because of how he’s bound; otherwise he would warn them.

Plenty of sharp things on the floor...

Colton cries out. Duke turns.

Thunderwing raises Colton’s machine gun and unloads. Most of them miss, but even one bullet can do the trick, especially if you’ve been beaten within an inch of your life already. His cybersuit armor doesn’t do much to protect him.

He goes down, still alive, but not getting up of his own accord for a while.

The human Decepticon tosses the gun aside. Colton lays by his feet, sprawled open like a bug.

OPTIMUS

_Dirty trick._

THUNDERWING

(labored)

_You didn’t stop me._

OPTIMUS

_You haven’t stopped them._

THUNDERWING

(chuckling, desperate)

_You think they’ll magically regain the strength to land the killing blow? That they’ll travel across the universe in a stolen flying saucer to finish the mission your Autobot armies failed?_

(beat)

_Huh!? Is that what you think!?_

Optimus only gazes down, eyes narrowing, becoming that transition shade of turquoise the Decepticon only recognizes vaguely. His imitation-eyes have been color-blind since his larger body went down. And he’s right.

But it’s not Colton or Duke who’ll deal the killing blow.

OPTIMUS

_They won’t have to._

By Thunderwing’s feet, Colton’s eyes flare open. He’s got a knife in his lower back. Discreetly as he can, he begins a crawl – toward the console, where Duke is unconscious.

Like the badass he is, he pulls the knife from his back, completely numb, using reserves of energy that are not his own.

He begins cutting.

Optimus doesn’t have to see this happen.

OPTIMUS

_You won’t live to see it._

THUNDERWING

_I don’t care. That thing in you..._

He tries pointing. Already, skin is peeling, silvery muscle is exposed. He hasn’t even seen the Matrix, might even think it’s something as simplistic as a perfectly featureless jade cube. It’s not.

Sparking. Thunderwing either doesn’t hear it; or thinks it’s just an afterimage.

Optimus begins testing his restraints. It won’t be painless, but when is it ever? And any other “smarter” ways they could’ve gone about it? Wouldn’t work out.

The battle overhead is going the only way it can: incomplete victory. Thunderwing still hasn’t broken that detached demeanor, that vessel’s shell. No more than acknowledgement of pain, that is all.

THUNDERWING

_What? WHAT!?_

Colton has climbed to his feet. And he returns the favor.

Optimus breaks loose, tearing metal free from metal. Colton falls to the floor with Thunderwing under him, feels the impact and rolls out of the way as Optimus crushes the Decepticon like a bug.

The soldier looks up at the soldier for a long time. Both of them know they don’t have long. But there was no other way. A sacrifice had to be made.

Colton doesn’t bother trying to get up, just crawls, making sure to avoid the rapidly-decaying remains of the Transformer: a puddle of living gallium on the floor. That was the secret to their many forms, wasn’t it?

He shakes Duke to some level of consciousness. All things considered, he’s in good enough condition. He’s like a kid after a long, tiresome nap.

DUKE

_Huhh...?_

COLTON

_It’s over. We won._

“Best we can,” he wants to add. But he won’t dilute the moment after all this. And, on a selfish level, it’s not his problem anymore...

Optimus simply stands over them, waiting for them to finish their shared moment.

DUKE

_Not true._

COLTON

_Guess... guess not. No. But let’s get out of here._

DUKE

_Amen to that. How badly you hurt?_

The Marine even cranes his head to examine his partner. Even through the remains of his own cybersuit, the damage is evident enough. He should’ve died.

Then again, who survives a machine gun being unloaded at point-blank without more than a potentially shattered arm and some holdover rib breaks?

They help each other up – Duke does most of the work. He doesn’t even register the Transformer looming over them, torn at the seams of his neck and arms, black char-marks beginning to form as the Transformer below him simply rots, and the one above needs time to begin healing.

DUKE

_C’mon man, this way._

But that’s a false hope Colton can’t abide.

COLTON

_No. That’s not going to happen._

And Duke’s not letting some Army Joe’s fatalism get the best of him.

DUKE

_Not taking that for an answer, soldier. Just keep moving._

COLTON

_It’s... it’s true._

(humorous)

_So get going. Jarhead._

DUKE

_It’s not that simple - I’m not letting you make it that simple._

COLTON

_Happens to... all of us. Just hope... can face what... lies ahead._

DUKE

(desperate, stammering, just trying to keep him talking)

_Y-you said it yours- self. We won._

Colton collapses, groans. Duke struggles to kneel, try to get some response from his friend – yes, he considers it obvious enough now, this soldier’s been his friend all this time. He looks up to Optimus, who can only watch, like he’s some selfish deity above it all.

Duke wants to verbally lash out at him, rebuke him, punish him for this.

But even he knows casualties are inevitable. Even people he cares about.

He thinks of something to say to Optimus, gets down to cradle Colton’s head like it’s his baby dying on the floor.

DUKE

(saddened)

_Is there anything you can do – anything at all?_

OPTIMUS

_No. But you can help him – are helping him now._

Colton stares up to Duke: loss, confusion, but... ultimately, acceptance. He’s done his part as a soldier, withstood that predatory rabbit, fought it back.

He briefly makes eye contact with Duke before dying: all-American blue eyes flare up a brighter, fluorescent color.

(brief flash of green)

And it’s over.

Optimus kneels, opens his hands.

OPTIMUS

_I can take him._

SLOW FADE OUT.

The image becomes blurry. The slightly-zombified Optimus, the exhausted Duke, a dead human and another almost-human, surrounded by experimental military vehicles and industrial lights. All of it becomes one big, soft blob of shadow.

Silent.

Now comes the aftermath. Funeral music for snare and bugle. The folding flags, some space-age rendition of the three-volley solute.

Darkness. Just as darkness lies ahead, as if nothing’s changed.

But it has. Just no one knows what yet. And no one wants to.

**EXT. INSIGNIA – JAPAN – DAY**

This is where they’ll keep the remains of the Destrongers. The Decepticons (what’s left of them) have been disposed of somewhere else. Somewhere dishonorable. Cannibalistic.

The remains of Galvanized Iron stand at attention in dress uniform. The Autobots have donned primary-colored arm stripes for the occasion, even thrown in their traditional Autobot insignia. That includes the Constructicons (black stripes) and Destrongers (blue stripes).

No one’s really thought about how big the Insignia is. For this ceremony, they now see that the Monger’s original assessment (that none of them know anything about) is accurate: it is, indeed, visible from space. Good. Let anyone who sees it come.

Optimus stands alongside Skids, Prowl, Perceptor, and the Constructicons, although admittedly he will always be something of an outsider to them.

Duke and Abernathy head the human ranks. Stoicism isn’t alien to either of them, but discomfort and grief aren’t, either.

Still, he’s the one who brought them out here. None of them have any idea why. They feel some of the power in this place, though, that much is obvious.

OPTIMUS

_You’ve seen what we’re up against now. And you know why, as best anyone can. This will not be our last battle, on this world... or any other._

He points to the Insignia, moves his finger to the symbol on his own left shoulder. His eyes flare up green, then settle into blue again.

OPTIMUS

_We don’t have long. More battles approach._

(beat)

_From the Inside._

How long until then, he can’t say. But as far as they can tell, nothing’s changed. Just more pieces on this grand board of a planet, Earth.

Pieces that G.I. Joe will be happy to oblige. That’s their name now, and they’ve taken the Autobot symbol.

FAVOR ON: the red Autobot face has been patched to every uniform. Red, the color of the enemies’ eyes, but not irredeemable; the enemy, however, has not an ounce of redemption in it. Not a quantum of remorse. Never in a megaanum would they stop this war for anything, especially not since now there’s a weapon they need, and resistance they have not put down.

All this said, to say nothing’s changed would be a lie. Everything’s changed.

And will keep changing.

The white Sun almost looks like a Moon overhead, burning reflected light down onto them through daylight-obscuring clouds.

The year is 1988. September. No future is certain, but the future is inevitable...

FINAL FADE TO: Black.

OPTIMUS (V.O)

(slightly reverberated)

_That is all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews much appreciated, as always! : )


	5. Rejection Letter + Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little extra stuff, I guess.

_Kelly,_

_Your, erm… pitch… is quite something. Again, you prove filmmaking is not your only skill._

_My primary concern, as I hope you realize, is not some shadowy government kill squad coming after any and everyone who’s seen or helped make a film about what people are already guessing. Instead, I’m worried about a flop. No matter how we choose to make this, there’s no way it won’t be costly, and the returns will be low. Not only that, you might actually confuse more people than you do educate. You’d be better served making a documentary about the aftermath, although unfortunately I doubt anyone’ll be interested._

_I’m sorry, but I can’t help you, and this film as you present it will not happen. By the way your opening letter’s worded, I can guess others have already told you that._

_Still your friend,_

_G.B. Blackrock_

_(P.S.: you may be commissioned for another neo-Kaiju film in the near future, if you want to incorporate some of these “historical details”. I hope this will suffice.)_

_­­_

* * *

_…_

* * *

BLINK IN:

**EXT. SOMEWHERE IN THE DESERT – NOT LONG BEFORE DAWN – NIGHT OF DECEPTICON AMBUSH**

Grimlock stumbles, half-Transformed somewhere between dinosoar and robot Modes. With half a mouthful of broken tusks he tries to grunt, yell in frustration and pain. He’s already scared away anything that can hear him.

Somewhere behind him are the mountains he’s passed through. He didn’t just scare away animals, he scared away a few hikers, too.

His single blue optic band glints in what’s left of the darkness, with daybreak approaching. He’s weak, exhausted, unlikely to heal in time. Already, his gold-silvery flesh is going black around the edges, trying to repair the damage on a cellular level. It won’t be enough.

As he tries to get to his feet, we see than several joints have been knocked loose. A half-Transformed right leg juts out at an odd angle, bending sideways, foot somewhere up his shin. A T-rex arm waves hello from between the cracks of a broken back panel.

Again, he stumbles, trips over nothing, falls to the ground. Grits his tusks. The remains of one long incisor drop from a one-sided open-mouthed scowl.

He lowers his head. It’s hopeless, isn’t it? He’s lost, injured far worse than even he feels, risks discovery with every second he’s out here.

A new light approaches. He looks up: the slightly-shimmering form of Convoy. He’s a pure black shadow against the small emerald sun at his back.

He approaches. Doesn’t look exactly as Grimlock remembers him, more like he’s become someone else. He won’t know this new being’s name until later.

We hear each step as if with Grimlock’s broken ears: a tinny, warbling sound. Through broken optics we see him, almost like the Constructicons saw him. Each step is louder than the last – sand doesn’t crunch like icy snow, or gravel. Yet to Grimlock’s receptors, it does.

CONVOY

_You’re badly hurt._

His voice! It’s almost the voice of a demon, unlike any sound Grimlock’s heard before. He hears things Galvanized Iron and the rest of the Autobots will not. The voice speaks in every language, every voice from every world. He hears the voiced hisses and heavy vowels of Xxezz, the pitched tones of Aioye, plenty of others he’s never even thought possible.

Almost mirroring Duke and Colton, he comforts the dying Autobot. The green light never seems fully connected to him, more like it’s a projector and Convoy’s the image. Unlike Duke and Colton, he doesn’t hold the giant in his comparatively small arms. He hasn’t gotten the hang of this yet, at least not enough for mass shifting.

CONVOY

(rambling)

_There are things I have to do. Things I must let happen. Things I don’t fully understand._

He wants to find some way to make this easier for Grimlock, can’t find the words. Across the space of several thousand miles the image momentarily wavers, returns to as full a resolution as Grimlock will get.

CONVOY

_I can make this easier for you, but it comes at a cost._

Grimlock, with half the servomotors in his neck still functional, tries to nod. It takes a lot of effort. As those guys in the military would say, “there’s so much weakness leaving the body he’s the strongest thing alive”. He doubles over where he kneels.

Convoy now makes physical contact, reaching out to brace him, keep him from biting the dust. From an incredible distance, one might even mistake it for a hug.

Very well, then.

The window panels on Convoy’s chest fold open, revealing to Grimlock a light he’s never seen before! Despite how impossible it seems, his single optic band goes wide. He’s no less scared, but this presents at least the illusion of greater certainty.

The Prime seems to inhale through his whole body. Dust is kicked up in circular motions all around them. From his chest emanates power beyond color, beyond temperature, shaky in time.

We see it full-on: The Autobot Matrix of Leadership. A sphere with two long handles, the true source of the emerald-green light. Ironic, Thunderwing tried so hard to get through to that, would never see it; yet this so-called “lesser being” is getting a front-row view.

And more...

Wind. A powerful, sucking wind, like a black hole in a box. For a moment, Grimlock is made perfect again, then - !

He dissolves like a gigantic corpse-shaped hunk of salt. The powdery stuff falls into the whirlpool in the other Autobot’s chest, disappears.

(inwardly): SCHWOOOOOOP!

The light goes out. Optimus’ chest closes. Not just the light in his chest, the light everywhere. He’s just a shadow in the dark now, as the Autobots will see him.

He hopes what he’s just done is the right thing. That he will continue to do the right thing.

That it will be enough.


End file.
